As Rex and his group try to follow after him, Exodus keeps teleporting farther and farther away from all of them. 'Damn I can't believe he would run away like this.' Rex inwardly curses.
Morag, Poppi, and Lila all try to catch up with Exodus by using their jets to fly over their army, but no matter how fast they are Exodus can still teleport farther in bursts than they can.
Exodus looks behind him and laughs. "Seems you foolish humans can't keep up with me! Temperantia is mine!" As Exodus laughs once more he sends a torrent of his weapons flying at the group which they all manage to dodge. Exodus resummons all his weapons and sends them in another volley behind him to which the group repeatedly dodges the weapon onslaught again. Exodus keeps repeating this to make the gap between them further and further as the group keeps having to dodge his attacks which makes their progress towards Exodus slow to a crawl. Seeing as Exodus has finally made it to the center of Temperantia and with Rex's group nowhere in site Exodus cuts a path downwards to get to the core faster.
"Why won't Exodus fight us?" Rex asks aloud seeing as Exodus didn't go straight for them like he normally would.
Zeke responds. "I think he might be after his next ring. Seeing as he ignored us something tells me that he's going to get an insane power boost or a new skill that will make him unstoppable."
Morag begins to fly as fast as she can towards Exodus' direction with her new jet boosters to try and stop Exodus before it is too late. Poppi and Lila are trailing slightly farther behind her as they see Exodus tearing a hole into the ground. "He's going for the core." Morag tells the two artificial blades. "We need to slow him down until the rest of our group catches up understood?"
Poppi looks towards Morag and nods. "Understood, activating QTπ mode." Poppi activates QTπ mode mid air as the three get close to Exodus who has just fallen into the inside of the Temerantian titan. Without saying a word the tree fly down after him and see him stop and turn towards them with more of his weapons summoned.
"I'll just finish you three off now." Exodus shoots his weapons in another volley and the three of them dodge to the sides. Exodus then summons a massive scythe using ten of his weapons and jumps towards them using platforms he has created from his remaining weapons to slash horizontally at Morag who ducks under the blow then grabs Brighid's swords to slash at Exodus. Seeing this Exodus unsummons the platform he is standing on to avoid the attack and summon another platform slightly lower to then jump up with a vertical slash but Poppi parries the attack with her own sword and follows up with a downwards slash to which Exodus again unsummons his platform again to avoid the attack but is surprised when as he's falling Lila grabs onto his leg and throws Exodus at full force with jets activated towards the ground which rumbles the entire cave they are all in.
Exodus gets up and dusts his clothes off before charging the maid blade with knuckle claws activated and as Lila is getting ready to counter attack Exodus teleports behind Lila last second and sends her flying into the wall of the cave making an indent in the wall as well as puncturing Lila's face a little. Exodus then cranks his fourth ring to the max and temporarily restrains Morag so she can't fight back. "This power would've never affected you if you hadn't soiled my children." Exodus snarls as he summons a spear of fire and hurls it at full force right towards the restrained Morag. Poppi gets in front of Morag and slashes the spear away using her own weapon before firing a beam from her sword right towards Exodus. Exodus summons five ether cannons of various elements and overpowers Poppi's own beam. Seeing as Exodus was going to hit her Poppi quickly grabs Morag and dodges the attack. In his distraction Exodus gets multiple chops delivered to his back which forces him to turn around to see Lila palm strike Exodus right in the face.
"Gah! You bitch! That's going to leave a mark." Exodus then summons all of his knuckles claws and begins to unload a volley of punches that Lila cannot counter and sends Lila flying again. Seeing his opportunity Exodus teleports further into the innards of the titan. In order to slow the three of them down Exodus unleashes several ether cannons towards the sides of the walls as he teleports to collapse the part of the cave that he was teleporting through. This causes the cave to begin to collapse. Seeing this Poppi puts her hands up and catches the cave ceiling with her hands as she desperately tries to keep the cave from totally collapsing on all of them.
"GAAHHHHHH!" Poppi shouts as she gets pushed further and further to the floor. Suddenly Lila shows up on the other side of the cave and begins to lift the cave ceiling as well. Although the cave is no longer collapsing it also isn't going up either. Seeing this Morag gets into the dual wielding formation and activates it. After being activated Morag begins to unleash a huge torrent of water and flames to melt and dissolve all the rock from the collapsing ceiling. This leads to a humongous hole forming above them to which the rest of the group had just arrived to see them.
"Woah what happened here?" Mikhail asks in surprise.
"No time to explain, after Exodus." Morag commands.
"On it." Rex jumps down and asks what direction Exodus went to which Morag gives him the instructions. "Are you going to be alright?"
"I'll be fine. Just give me a minute. I'll catch up with all of you." Morag replies. Brighid and Aegeon go to her side and wait for her to recover.
Tora looks to his two blades. "Is Poppi and Lila alright? Need rest?"
"No need Masterpon. Let keep going." Poppi responds with Lila nodding in agreement.
As the group runs off in the direction Exodus ran off to Morag shouts a warning. "Zeke! Mikhail! Exodus can control blade eaters!"
"Well isn't that lovely." Mikhail sarcastically replies.
"Crap that's going to be tough to deal with." Zeke responds.
By this point Exodus has already gotten to the core of the Temperantian titan and sees that the core crystal is almost completely out. "I suppose you were already dying from the looks of it." Exodus sighs. "Apologies my dear child." Exodus rips out the Temperantian titans core crystal. This titan was so old that it only gave one weak rumble before dying entirely. "Now for some real fun." Exodus begins condensing the core crystal into a small enough gem to be slotted into his fifth ring. Right as Exodus is about to slot his fifth ring Rex comes barreling into the room and knocks the core crystal out of Exodus' hand. "YOU LITTLE SHIT! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Exodus summons two gigantic axes each made of ten weapons and furiously slashes at Rex madly. Rex expertly dodges and weaves around the maddened strikes and tries to pick up the gem that Exodus just made. Right as he's about to pick up the gem Exodus unsummons one of the axes and sends ten spikes shooting up from the ground to surround the gem so Rex has to pull his arm back.
Seizing this opportunity Exodus reaches out to grab the gem when suddenly his hand is massively jolted by electricity. "GAHK!" Exodus spits out in pain.
"Super Mega Ultimate Blinding Elexecution!" Zeke confidently speaks out.
Exodus looks over at Zeke in pure shock with his mouth completely gaping. "You! Their is no way a human should be able to use Blade Shift. It is an art that only a blade can use and even then it would be impossible to do as it means that the driver would not be able to use it." Exodus rambles in utter bewilderment at what he is witnessing.
"Go ahead and try to grab it again you bastard. You won't be able to now that my Blade Shift is activated." Zeke grabs hold of his new sword that has formed from the transformation. The blade has turned into what appeared to be a sword in the shape of a giant yellow lightning bolt. By this point Zeke takes off his eyepatch and begins to get his eye ready but right before he can use it Exodus quickly uses his fourth ring to bring Zeke to his knees.
"Don't you DARE underestimate me!" Exodus sends spikes downwards on Zeke as he is pinned down to which the spikes slightly stray off course and hit around Zeke instead of skewering him. "What? Is this apart of your Blade Shift?"
"Like... I'd... tell... you!" Zeke grunts out. As Exodus is still in shock Rex is able to knick Exodus' leg which catches him by surprise, but that surprise suddenly turns to a devious smirk.
"That wretched creature isn't here. You can't use that power to defeat me! Not only that, you also can't heal!" Exodus teleports behind Rex and slices downwards with a sword of flames. Exodus expects Rex to block with his sword but what Rex does instead takes Exodus completely off guard. Rex catches the sword with his mechanical arm which slightly struggles from the strength behind the blade and in one swift swipe takes Exodus' left arm off. "GAAAAHHHHH!"
"I learned that little trick from your fake." Rex smirks at Exodus. Rex then swipes at Exodus to which Exodus puts up an ice shield in front of him to block the attack all the while reattaching his arm with a water brace to begin healing up his wound. Exodus immediately teleports towards Zeke who is still under the effects of the forth ring and grabs Zeke by the head. "TO HELL WITH YOU!" Exodus picks Zeke up and slams his head hard into the ground causing Zeke to cough up some blood Exodus then follows up with kicking him in the gut with enough force to send him crashing into the wall and leaving an indent. Right as Exodus is turning around to go back after Rex he finds himself face to face with Poppi thrusting her sword right into Exodus' gut.
"Exodus should really pay more attention to fight." Poppi states seriously.
"I will." Exodus forces the blade deeper into him so that he can grab Poppi by her neck and lift her up closer to his face as she struggles to escape his grasp. Exodus bears a maddening look into the artificial blade. "You are nothing but a cheap imitation of my children. For this mockery I shall sentence you to death." Exodus reals his fist back and ten knuckle claws meld together into one super powerful all elemental knuckle claw that is aimed towards Poppi's stomach. Right as he is about to punch Poppi, Lila appears right in front of Exodus and in one swift palm strike to the sword still embedded in his chest sends the entire sword through him. This takes a significant amount of the power out of his punch and the hit only sends Poppi flying and leaves a small dent where the punch connected.
"Get hands off of sister you filthy dog." Lila unemotionally states.
"You call me a DOG?!" Exodus begins to heal his new wound while he summons two tonfa's to his arms and engages Lila in hand to hand combat to which Lila activates her arms into attack mode. Exodus begins with a hook from the left to which Lila blocks and tries to go for an attack to Exodus midsection. Seeing this coming Exodus summons a water shield in the area to protect him. Thinking on his feet Exodus fuses a second weapon into the shield and suddenly a spike shoots out of the shield right towards where Lilas fist is. Lila begins pulling back but isn't fast enough and the hit grazes her arm. Exodus then goes for a right uppercut as he lunges forward. Lila dodges to the side as she sees Exodus using the momentum from the strike to turn around and sock her with a right hook. Right as Lila is getting ready to block the attack Exodus suddenly teleports behind her and smashes the fist into the back of her head. This leaves Lila dazed momentarily to which Exodus summons a spiked boot to his left leg and in one swift kick pierces right through Lila from the back while sending her flying as well.
As Exodus turns his head and begins walking back towards his fifth gem he unsummons his brace as his left arm is fully healed. "Ah Ah Ah. Did you forget about someone?" Exodus turns his head to face the new voice and sees Mikhail standing their baiting him to attack. Without a second thought Exodus summons ten of his weapons to form into a giant bow that is slightly shorter than Exodus as Exodus takes aim towards Mikhail as he summons a sword to be used as an arrow for the gargantuan bow.
"I have no time for small fries." Right as Exodus is about to release the arrow he activates his forth ring to keep Mikhail in place so he can't escape. The blow hits Mikhail dead on but Exodus is surprised to see Mikhail still alive albeit a bit singed. "How can you still be alive from an attack like that?"
Mikhail just chuckles before giving Exodus the biggest shit eating grin that he can. "I am a tank after all." Mikhail then says something under his breath. Exodus is curious at this.
"What was that?" Exodus asks.
"I said you should really watch your back."
Exodus turns around to see Rex and Poppi both coming down on Exodus from over head with their swords. The two manage too slice across Exodus' chest leaving an 'X' shaped cut on his chest. In his rage Exodus releases a massive amount of ether which sends everyone flying into the walls and for a second it almost feels like the entire cave is going to collapse from the sheer pressure Exodus is exulting. "Screw this! I'm getting my gem now!" Exodus teleports in front of Rex and stabs him in the side with a sword before giving him a slap that was so loud that the entire cave echoed the hit. This left a big red mark on Rex's face. Exodus then quickly teleports over to Poppi and ensnares her left leg with one of his braces leaving her pinned down. Exodus then summons a hatchet to his hand and cleaves her leg clean off which sends some sparks flying out.
"Poppi!" Tora yells out in shock.
"I will tear you apart faker!" Poppi tries to stab Exodus in the chest but Exodus grabs the blade mid swing and crumples the sword in his hand before yanking it out of her hand and tossing it aside. Exodus then slashes wildly at Poppi abdomen before finishing off with picking Poppi up and pinning her to the wall with the hatchet buried deep in her shoulder.
Tora runs over to Poppi clearly terrified at seeing his life long creation get dismantled by Exodus' hand. "Poppi! Are you alright?!"
Poppi slowly looks up to face Tora. "Y-yes Poppi w-will be f-fine. J-just need to r-rest for minute." Poppi looks absolutely exhausted.
Exodus begins to slowly make his way towards the gem that is still being protected by his barrier of spikes. "Now I believe you belong to me." Exodus tries to pick up the gem again but yet again finds that he gets an extremely painful static shock whenever his hand gets near it.
"I'm not finished with you yet." Exodus turns around to see Zeke back up on his feet with his eyepatch off. Right as Exodus is raising his hand to activate his fourth ring he suddenly feels something slice at his hand.
"I hope you didn't forget about me." Mikhail smirks at Exodus and continues to slash gracefully with his fans to which Exodus tries to punch the fans but finds that his normal punches aren't strong enough.
"You really shouldn't be distracted so easily." Zeke then unleashes his eye upon Exodus and begins quickly draining Exodus' ether.
"Don't get cocky with me!" Exodus raises his fourth ring to subdue Zeke, but at the last minute finds that his hand is caught in a burst of flames. Looking behind Zeke Exodus sees Morag slowly walking up to join the other two. "So you've recovered as well huh?" Exodus teleports out of the range of Zeke's eye. 'He took about ten percent of my ether. I need to be on my toes.' "You leave me no choice." Exodus raises his hand and activates his third and fourth rings simultaneously. Exodus forces Brighid, Aegeon, and Pandoria to their knees. Exodus own core begins to shine brilliantly as dozens of core crystals begin pouring out of his core crystal and all of the new core crystals begin resonating at the same time. Suddenly their are about sixty blades in the room that Exodus has just summoned. "My children, slay my enemies and bring our kind glory!" The blades all shout in agreement.
"This isn't good. Without our blades we'll only have a fraction of our power." Zeke worriedly comments.
"We'll each have to take on about twenty if I were to give an estimate." Morag cooly tells the other two.
"I'm not effected that much so I should be fine." Mikhail pulls up his fans and begins spin slashing towards the horde of ravage blades.
"Time to put these new limbs to work." Morag darts towards some of the blades and begins slashing at them with jet powered strikes from her new limbs.
"I guess it's time to use the eye of shining justice more." Zeke turns on his eye and begins draining the ether of as many blades as he can.
As this carnage is ensuing Exodus teleports behind Zeke while he's draining the blades ether and summoning a dark knuckle duster to his right fist. He additionally summons ten dark braces along his entire right arm to further amplify the power of the hit. "Goodbye." As Zeke turns his head he sees the insane dark power resonating from the punch. In a vain attempt Zeke tries to move his head out of the way while also draining as much of the ether from the punch as he can. However it is too late. Exodus makes contact with Zeke's jaw and the force of the attack sends a shockwave through the entire cave. The attack completely shatters Zeke's jaw and sends Zeke crashing through the wall of the cave and then creating a massive crater in the next room over. Zeke is completely knocked out by the force of this blow.
"Impressive. If it weren't for your reflexes or eye you would've surely died from that blow." Exodus praises Zeke. Exodus notices that Zeke's weapon has turned back to its normal state. "Now I can grab that gem." As Exodus turns his head he realizes that Morag and Mikhail are picking off the last few of his children. Ignoring this Exodus begins to slowly walk towards the gem that he has been trying so desperately to pick up. Morag and Mikhail both see this and the two quickly hatch a plan. Mikhail quickly charges straight towards Exodus while Morag begins to mix water and fire ether to make steam.
"Hey Exodus, you're a real dumbass you know that?" Mikhail taunts Exodus.
"That arrogance will cost you your life." Exodus activates his fourth ring and keeps Mikhail still. Exodus slowly walks towards Mikhail as he continues to struggle. Exodus slowly begins forming an axe of pure light to his left hand as he approaches Mikhail. "This is your end." As Exodus lifts the axe up he keeps mixing more and more of his weapons into the axe to make it larger and larger as he lifts it above his head.
"Secret Dual Art: Writhing of the One Thousand Phantom Blades." Suddenly Exodus feels hundreds of cuts all around his body within seconds.
"What the hell?! You were never this fast before!" Exodus shouts out. 'It must be her robot limbs that are making her faster.'
"Secret Dual Art: Writhing of the One Thousand Phantom Blades."
'She can do it back to back now to?!' Exodus thought as another round of cuts scoured his body. 'You leave me no choice.' Exodus summons all his weapons and turns them into a thick golden armor that covers his entire body and head. "I'd like to see you cut through this!"
"I shall cut through anything you use to defend." Morag declares as she points her katana towards Exodus. "Secret Dual Art: Writhing of the One Thousand Phantom Blades!" As Morag begins her third assault on Exodus she finds that her attacks aren't even phasing him. Then the unthinkable happens. Exodus grabs Morag by the wrist.
Exodus deactivates his helmet so Morag can see the smug look on his face. "Since this armor is impervious to such shallow attacks I was able to focus on watching your movements. After that I made a guess to where you would strike next and I was correct." Exodus then pulls Morag close so he can whisper in her ear. "Now you will perish." Exodus slices Morag's arms and legs off by the elbows and kneecaps respectively and sends sparks flying from her mechanical body. He then throws her body at a wall where she slides down slowly. Exodus then completely deactivates his armor before turning his head back around to see that Mikhail was now holding the gem.
"Looking for this?" Mikhail shows off the gem to Exodus.
"Actually I am. Would you mind giving it to me?" Exodus sarcastically asks.
"I don't think I will." Mikhail throws the gem up in the air and pulls out his fans to destroy the gem but right as he throws the gem in the air Exodus teleports directly in front of it and grabs it while simultaneously kicking Mikhail away with a bladed boot.
"Finally you're mine!" Exodus quickly slots the gem into the fifth ring and the power output is immense. "AAAHHHHH! THIS POWER IS INCREDIBLE!" Exodus begins to laugh maniacally. "No need for this damn cave anymore!" Exodus points his hand up and twenty five ether cannons of darkness spawn. He unleashes all of them up towards the ceiling of the cave and within seconds the entire ceiling is vaporized by the sheer power of the blast and a hole back up to the surface is created. Exodus looks over to his side and sees Rex tiredly get up and point his blade towards Exodus with his mechanical arm.
"I can't... let you win... this battle..." Rex tiredly spits out at Exodus.
Exodus begins to giggle like crazy at the words that Rex had just said. "Oh?" Exodus teleports behind Rex. "I've already won." Exodus picks Rex up by the back of his neck and throws him up towards the surface. Rex bumps into the side of the cave as he roughly lands back up on the surface of Temperantia. As Exodus teleports back up on the surface he begins to heal all his minor wounds he had suffered throughout the fight. Exodus slowly walks towards Rex who slowly gets up again and readies his sword. Rex sluggishly runs towards Exodus and tries to slash at him but the blade doesn't even scratch Exodus' skin. "It's pointless. Without that mistake with you and in the current state you're in you'll never be able to cut me." Exodus simply punches Rex in the gut making Rex double over in pain.
"I... c-can't give up... I can't... r-run away... I need..." Rex looks up to Exodus with a defiant look. "...TO PROTECT THEM!"
"And who is 'them' if you don't mind me asking."
"MY FRIENDS!... MY FIANCEE!... AND MY PEOPLE!" Exodus tries another strike on Exodus' chest but it yet again slides right off of Exodus' skin. Rex keeps trying with all his might but not a single slash harms Exodus. Exodus then punches Rex in the head disorienting him before following up with a knee to the stomach dropping Rex to one knee to finish off with a devastating kick to the chin sending Rex plummeting to the ground.
"You've got guts kid I will give you that." Exodus then summons a single katana to his left hand. "But looks like you're about to lose them." Exodus then stabs Rex in the gut causing Rex to spit out some blood. Exodus moves the blade back and fourth to make the pain worse before pulling the blade out. "Well, it's been fun but you are no longer entertaining to me. So this is goodbye you miserable ant." Exodus slowly moves his blade up towards Rex's chest lining the blade up directly with where Rex's heart is. He slowly reels his katana back to strike. "Any last words?"
Rex looks over to Exodus and spits blood at Exodus' right cheek. Exodus angrily wipes the blood off his face with his right hand. "Yeah, just three. Go to hell." Exodus thrusts his katana down towards Rex's heart. Right as Exodus breaks the skin over Rex's heart Rex's entire body glows in a spectacular glow of blood red which blows Exodus back a few feet. A bright light shines from Rex's body as the temperature around them suddenly begins to drop rapidly. Rex's body begins to slowly float upwards to levitate slightly above the ground as the power keep growing exponentially.
"What the hell is going on?!" Exodus shouts in surprise.
Suddenly a blood red core crystal begins to form at the front of Rex's chest as it begins to slowly float outward away from Rex's chest. The core crystal begins to form outwards as a body slowly emerges from the core.
At that very moment on the other side of the continent Nia is suddenly jolted awake from her coma. Nia stares up wide eyed as she feels this immense ether signature near wherever Rex is at that moment. Nia suddenly begins to recognize who it is. "No way... it can't be!"
Down in the pit where everyone else is Morag, Mikhail, and Tora all feel the immense ether signature as well.
"Wh-what is ether?! It incredible!" Tora shouts in shock.
Morag looks up in shock as she knows that ether signature. "How is this possible? He should be dead!"
Mikhail looks up with a serene smile. "So you finally used that technique after all, aye old friend?"
Rex slowly lifts his head to see that Exodus has an air of deathly caution to him as he has twenty five different weapons all around him and ready to strike as he eyes down his new opponent. Rex then looks off to the side to see who Exodus is currently staring down. What Rex sees makes him have to do a double take. What he sees in front of him is a man around Zeke's height but he's wearing completely white clothing with a white jacket that goes all the way down to his boots. He has shoulder length white hair as well. The most striking feature about the man at least from the back is the katana he has resting on his back with a blood red core crystal embedded in it. The man turns his head towards Rex.
"It has truly been a while Rex."
When Rex sees the mans face and sees the light blue eyes and the blood red core crystal resting on his forehead Rex has to rub his eyes to see if he's not just seeing things. "Jin? Is that really you?"
Jin lightly nods his head. "It is."
Rex looks at him in utter bewilderment. "B-but how are you..."
"I'll explain everything later. The fact that I'm back implies that your life was in mortal danger. Fill me in on our enemy." Jin slowly looks back towards Exodus who loosens up a bit after the initial shock.
"R-right. This man is Exodus. He is some sort of ancient blade that is hellbent on destroying all of Elysium. He's already killed five titans now. Watch out, he has been giving all of us problems and he is extremely dangerous."
"Understood." Jin slowly grabs his sword off of his back and gets the sword in a ready position as he faces down Exodus.
Exodus looks at Jin with an air of confidence. "Tell me you're name my abomination of a child."
"No need to tell a dead man anything." Jin simply replies as he slowly walks towards Exodus as the temperature begins to quickly drop.
"Ho? An arrogant one huh? Let's see if you can back it up." Exodus teleports behind Jin and strikes down on him with all of his weapons. Jin turns around and begins deflecting all the weapons. As each weapon is deflected it gets unsummoned and a new one is summoned to be launched as well. This cycle is immense as the onslaught of weapons never ends and Jin continually blocks all the weapons. "You can't dodge forever. You'll eventually get overwhelmed." Suddenly their is a strike against Exodus' chest. Then another, then another. 'What?! He's out-speeding this?!' Exodus then teleports away while unsummoning all of his weapons and places five braces on each of his limbs instead. 'These braces should allow me to out punch and out speed him.'
Exodus summons two swords to each hand while he rapidly charges in and slashes at Jin. The slashes are so fast that Rex only sees blurs as Exodus moves his arms in motion. At first Jin can handle the speed of the strikes being dished out but eventually Jin begins to get overwhelmed as Exodus continues to get faster and faster. "You fool. You thought you could handle the might of my strikes? Laughable." Jin' body begins to be covered in cuts from Exodus' strikes.
"Jin!" Rex yells in worry.
"You're right, I can't out speed you." Jin hops back. "At least not in this form." The area gets even colder as ice begins to form on the ground they are all standing on. Exodus can't even sweat from fatigue as the coldness isn't allowing it. As the sheet of ice dissipates Jin is revealed to be in his second form with the black armor and the giant scar across his chest. The ether around them gets heavier and Exodus actually starts to become nervous. Jin disappears in a flash of light.
"He can teleport?!" Exodus shouts in shock.
Jin appears behind Exodus with his blade ready. "I can move at the speed of light in this form. No matter how fast you are you will never reach my top speed." Exodus then turns around to find Jin stabbing his through the front instead. Jin continues his assault on Exodus and skewers Exodus with his strikes. As Exodus is sent back he turns all of his weapons into either fire or earth staffs as he jumps in the air.
"DIE!" Exodus claps his hands together and the staffs all glow immediately. Suddenly their is a rumbling on the ground and then their is a massive shadow covering half of the Temperantian titan. Jin and Rex look up to see a massive meteor making its way right towards them.
"Thats a lot bigger than the last one." Rex fearfully comments.
"You've dealt with one of these attacks before?" Jin asks.
"In our last battle he did something similar although that one was a lot smaller than this one."
"I see. I will deal with this at once." Jin readies his blade as the blade begins to be coated in ice. "White Tsunami". Jin swings his blade with all his might and suddenly a massive wave of ice shoots forth from his blade in the shape of a wave. The ice continually builds up as it raises closer and closer to the meteor as it continues to fall. As the meteor crashes into the wave of ice the ice cushions the fall but it's apparent that the ice won't hold. Jin immediately runs up his own ice wave and readies his sword for a thrusting attack. As he pierces the meteor full force with his sword the meteor shatters from the strength behind the blow. Exodus and Rex both look on with slack jaws at this showing of power.
Exodus then summons a mix of water and wind ether cannons and begins to blast them towards Jin. Due to this combination of weapons this creates a whirlpool making its way towards him. Jin jumps into the air then slashes downward with his blade. "Heavenly Disrupt". As Jin comes crashing into the the whirlpool he slices the whirlpool in half while freezing it to create a spectacular sculpture of ice behind him. Jin jumps up towards Exodus and drives his swords forward. Exodus creates many shields in the way between him and Jin but Jin shatters through all of them like a rock thrown through glass. "Skywards Slash". Jin cuts Exodus right up the middle leaving a big nasty gash across his entire body. Exodus begins repairing the injury when he finds that Jin's ice is massively slowing down his healing.
Thinking quick on his toes Exodus teleports behind Jin and uses knuckle dusters with the other twenty four weapons being used as braces to massively enhance the power of the strike whiles also bringing his fourth rings output to max. The result is Exodus strikes Jin directly in the head before following up with a strike to the ribs then a strike to the right shoulder. The hits send Jin flying back while stabbing his blade in the ground to slow his momentum. Blood slowly leaks from the areas Jin was hit but he gets up and acts like the hits didn't phase him. "You're rather impressive. I never would've dreamed that an opponent like you would exist in this world besides the Aegis'. You truly are a cut above the rest." Exodus praises Jin.
"I don't need to hear praise from the likes of you." Jin speeds right towards Exodus who turns his weapons back into the golden armor to protect him from the strikes. The armor dents under the ferocity of Jin's strikes but Exodus quickly sees the pattern of strikes and manages to grab Jin's wrist. Once he grabs Jin's wrist Exodus summons a wind axe to his left hand and chops downwards on Jin's arm. Jin uses his free arm to create a massive sheet of ice to block the attack and immediately runs up Exodus' chest and spinning around throws Exodus using the momentum to free his arm. Jin then sprints right at Exodus while he's still flying mid air and lariats Exodus while he's upside down right into the ground hard enough to create a crater in the ground. Jin then attempts to unleash a series of thrusts but Exodus teleports out of the way. Exodus then activates his fourth ring to make Jin slower. It works but even then Jin is still incredibly fast. Exodus keeps the fourth ring activated while putting five braces back on each of his limbs to somewhat even out the speed gap between the two. Exodus makes all the braces flame element to counteract all the coldness Jin is creating so that Exodus can heal faster. Exodus then summons two knuckle claws of flames to each hand and charges at Jin with punches ready. Exodus and Jin then get locked into a fierce exchange of punches and parries. Seeing that Exodus is making no progress he changes his weapons mid swing to tonfa's and continues his assault. Nothing changes but now Jin is hitting Exodus even less now since the tonfa's do a better job at defending than the knuckle claws did.
Exodus goes for another weapon change and changes to nunchucks and begins spinning them like crazy which begins to overwhelm Jin as the one of them catches Jin's blade between the chains and the other begins to unload on Jin. After a brutal beating Exodus changes his attacking nunchuck into a gun and unloads several shots into Jin's head before throwing Jin to the side. Exodus thinks he's won as he sees Jin slumped over until he feels a blade dig deep into his gut. He looks down and sees Jin stabbing right through Exodus. "B-but how? I shot you in th-the head. Their's no way you could survive that."
Jin digs deeper into Exodus flesh as he tears jaggedly to the side which cuts the side of his ribs clean open. "You want to know why that gun didn't work on me? I'll tell you. My ability is to control all elementary particles. Those bullets you shot were all made of pure fire ether so they didn't effect me."
"So you did the same thing to the meteor and the whirlpool as well?"
"That is correct." Jin stoically replies.
Exodus face turns into a genuine smile. "I didn't want to use this so soon after getting it back but it looks like you're an opponent I simply must use it against." Exodus steps a few feet away from Jin before slowly floating into the air. "Prepare yourself for the ultimate attack. An attack so powerful that the Architect himself withered in fear when I used it." The ether around Exodus becomes chaotic and wild as the very fabric of space time begins to warp and tear where his right hand is. Exodus' ether rises exponentially to a point where nobody can even sense Exodus' ether anymore as his ether has ascended past the realm of mortals and has reached the realm of the Gods. The ether begins to destroy all mater that exists within the area where Exodus' right hand is as a blade begins to form in his right hand. The blade continues to grow into a disgusting and mangled mesh of steel as it smoothens out to look cleaner. After the blade is finished forming the blades length comes out to fifteen feet and the blade itself was a blank white with no other features. The sword looked more like pure ether than an acutal sword. "This sword may look like it's made of ether but I assure you it most certainly isn't. This sword transcends ether and has become a different existence all together. Your little trick will not work on it."
Jin prepares to grab Rex and dodge the attack. He is very much aware that he will die if he is hit by that attack as he can't even sense the attack. Exodus raises his sword with his right hand and calls out its name. "Himmelsbruch". Jin sprints towards Rex as fast as he can and grabs Rex out of the way of the attack. Exodus slashes the blade downwards and all hell breaks loose. One moment everything is normal, the next moment the entire land has been cut in half. The entire titan they were standing on has been cut completely in half from where Exodus was standing. The clouds above have completely parted away from the attack as if escaping its wrath. The cloud sea below also completely parted making the Lands of Morytha visible for all to see. The damage the attack caused was unfathomable as Rex looks on horrified at what he had just witnessed. Jin looks on in sadness. The sword in Exodus' hand dissipates and Exodus inwardly notes something. 'Looks like I can only manage one strike for now.' Exodus looks back over at Jin and Rex.
"Looks like I'm all out of energy. Guess I'll see you all next time then." Exodus gives a simple wave.
"Who said I was going to let you escape?" Jin raises his blade towards Exodus.
Exodus laughs. "Ha Ha Ha! I already have." Exodus teleports back to his home base leaving Rex and Jin alone.
Rex looks over to Jin in confusion and wants to ask how he's even here but something crosses Rex's mind. "SHIT! My friends might've been caught up in that attack!" Rex begins to frantically run towards where the pit was and looks down it to see everyone shaken up but generally everyone is still alive. Rex sighs in relief. Rex then notices that Jin has followed him. Rex turns around and stares down Jin with deathly seriousness. "Why are you back? What do you want from me? Can I trust you?"
Jin simply stares on at Rex for a moment. "All will be answered soon. You're suffering from multiple injuries that could lead to death if not treated soon. I advise that you get healed." Jin walks up to Rex and lightly freezes Rex's wounds. "This will stop the blood loss and you'll be fine for a while longer but you really do need to get treated soon."
"Not until we get my friends out of this pit. Dromarch should be waiting back at the teleporters for us so he can heal us there."
"Understood." Jin jumps down into the pit to begin helping the various people out of the pit. As Jin looks around he sees a shocked Morag, A happy Mikhail, a shocked Tora cradling Poppi with Lila not far behind, and a hole that he assumes Zeke has been thrown through.
"Jin it is good to see you again my old friend." Mikhail smiles at Jin as he walks up to him.
"Likewise. It is good to see you as well." Jin gives Mikhail a small smile to which Mikhail is caught off guard at first before smiling back.
"So, you're back to your old self huh? Glad to have you back." Mikhail pats Jin on the shoulder.
Jin walks over to Morag who is still just a stump and Brighid and Aegeon both block the way. "We can't trust you."
"Very well." Jin speed blitz all of them and all three are next to Rex before they can even blink. In another instance Jin returns with the rest of Morag's limbs. "These are yours I would assume?"
"Tch." Morag replies.
Jin returns and goes into the hole in the wall to find Zeke and Pandoria passed out. Jin hoists Zeke over his should with his left arm and carries Pandoria under his right arm. He speeds back up the pit and puts both of them down.
Jin returns to the pit to see Tora look on in shock. "Actually Tora use Lila to get up." Tora hops on Lila's shoulders while Lila picks up Poppi along with her leg and sword as she flies out of the pit.
Jin looks over to see Mikhail halfway up the pit. Jin grabs Mikhail and places him at the top with everyone else. "I could've made it on my own you know?" Mikhail pouts.
"Quit complaining. You were taking too long." Jin responds. "Rex said that Dromarch could heal you so we must hurry up. Rex also said teleporters? Are those a thing now?" Jin asks genuinely confused.
"They're actually a pretty new thing actually." Rex responds. "But more importantly how are you back? We all saw you die last time we met. What happened?"
Jin turns away and sighs. "I'll tell you all as we're going back. In the mean time this is yours." Jin throws Rex his katana. Rex barely catches it and looks up at Jin in confusion. "Be sure to take care of it."
"Wait. If you're giving me your sword then that means..."
"That is correct." Jin turns around and faces Rex. "You are now my driver." Jin turns back into his normal form. "And I am your blade."
to be continued...
Authors Notes: Looks like I got this chapter out a bit earlier than projected. That's pretty good. This chapter was fun to write and Jin has come back into the picture. How did he come back? You'll find out in chapter 40. Nia also woke up in this chapter so her and Rex can finally be reunited. Exodus has gotten stronger as well. Chapter 40 will probably be the last chapter I'll release before I go into another long time break so look forward to its release. Anyways tell me what you all thought of this chapter I'd like to know. This is Exile Mansion signing off.