The young priest, possessed by an otherworldly corrupting force labeling itself a destroyer, raised the horned sword out in front of him and pressed an open hand out to its surface. The blade emitted vibrant sparks while the possessed youth dragged the hand across its surface and the sword changed in appearance. The claymore-shaped blade flattened and became more akin to a massive cleaver and the turquoise-like steel alloy turned to charred black and lit ablaze. The sword spat pulsing fire when the possessed youth swung it and prepared to do battle.
"Pitiful human, why do you stand against Abaddon?" the transformed berserker snarled, spitting slobber as he growled with animalistic aggression.
"Because the mighty emu does not run, despite having the strongest legs. No matter the opponent, whether it be predators, other emus, or even humans, the emu kicks all of them with all their might all the same. I have studied the path of the emu for years and I simply do not know another way to live," Ozigi replied. "To wage war against the emu is to lose."
"Why would you say that when you know I'll destroy you!?" Abaddon exclaimed, slamming the tip of his sword down on the ground and whipping the massive bat-like wings to propel it onward.
The avatar of the demonic beast swung its transformed sword in an arc as wide as the sword allowed, the swing released a raging crescent-shaped firestorm that chased off the horizon and splashed against the protective brick wall on the outside of the arena. Even if his sword drew no blood, the mad beast Abaddon continued to wail and thrash around. It was as if it resolved to continue to keep on swinging for as long as it had the wrath and the will to destroy left in its corrupting soul, and both things proved to be bottomless.
The body that Abaddon inhabited, however, was not. The possessed priest stopped rampaging around in a blink, freezing up in intense pain with bulged-out eyes that glowed bloody crimson. A burst of light blew out from inside the berserker's chiseled body. Strangely enough, it didn't radiate the same light that burst out, instead, it spat out black, ink-like bile in all directions, forcing the beast into a stumble as it used its free hand to cover up the leakage and stuff it back inside.
"This is my chance!" Ozigi decided, standing at the blunt side of the sword to avoid facing the immeasurable weight of the demon's swings, and took up into the air with a passionate roundhouse.
Abaddon's free hand released the wound where the exploding ray of light blasted out from his body and caught the spinning kick by the heel. Mercilessly, the beast that leaked every ounce of the corruption it used to possess, the young priest slammed Ozigi like a rag doll against the tiles and then flung it into the air. Bellowing with all the primal bestial force of destruction it contained, Abaddon radiated beams of absolute heat from its glowing crimson eyes that engulfed the Sky Warrior combatant whole.
A vicious rip resonated through the arena, stunning and deafening most surrounding combatants, as only charred chunks of human flesh scattered from the explosive scene of Abaddon's destructive whims. "I have destroyed him!" Abaddon howled. "You would fight me even when I destroy your enemies for you, whelp? Before long, you'll need my power again, and then I'll break your spine like a twig and use your body as an entryway into your realm. Then we'll see if it can survive even a single step of the Destroyer!"
It initially might have appeared that Abaddon was speaking to no one, or that he spoke with himself, vocalizing his internal thoughts. But that wasn't entirely true. Embedded in the beast's chest was an innocent face of a young man that burrowed exactly from where it cast the ray of light and wounded the bestial demon previously. Luminal rips severed Abaddon's corporeal form, splitting it into hundreds of pieces as more and more new rips formed before a single burst scattered the chunks of Abaddon's possessive form as thick blotches of void ink.
Soaked in that ink, in the center of that forceful exorcism, stood the young priest boy himself. When he grabbed the handle of his sword and pulled it from the tile he embedded its tip and blade into the sword's demonic form burned away and its appearance returned to its previous look. Soaked in droopy, black, demonic ectoplasm, the young priest panted on one knee before using his tremendous sword for support.
"Back to the abyss with you, demon," he whispered under his own nose before heaving his claymore back over his shoulders.
"Oh, dear!" the announcer howled out, slamming himself against the railing with an outlandish reaction to Abaddon's carnage. "The young priest competing alongside the magician faction, Gunshi Asupen, utterly obliterated contestant Ozigi of the Sky Warriors! Such lack of restraint is rare amongst fighters of this caliber and it just doesn't seem like young Gunshi could have helped himself. He became someone else for a moment there! Perhaps that is why he fights alongside the magicians, hoping that they can use the Agbarah Shogunate as their nexus point for a magical tower where they could then treat his… Condition? It's difficult not to root for his cause if that's true, I like the Salvari as much as anyone else, but… I kind of like our existence not overtaken by demons as terrible as that Abaddon beast, don't you guys?"
Somewhere else in the arena, a towering Cursed Warrior slammed its building-sized hand against the superhero Dandy Man in an attempt to squish him. The Cursed Warrior's arm tipped up ever so slightly as Dandy Man had set-off the seals that reversed the values of his spiritual and physical chakra and turned him into Randy Man, a mindless, rampant brute with physical chakra equal to Dandy Man's emotional intelligence and sound mind.
"RANDY MAN RIP THIS ARM OFF AND BEAT YOU WITH IT!" the abominable monstrosity of musculature and veins proclaimed, grabbing hold of the thumb and index finger of the legless Cursed Warrior with a dome-shaped head. Just as more and more cracks formed all over the surface of the Cursed Warrior's arm, the circle pattern decorating the dome-shaped head of the Cursed Warrior glowed. A strident cerulean blast decimated Randy Man and the area he stood in, leaving only a crippled, burnt, and broken Dandy Man laying in the crater of the collapsed arena.
"And the Cursed Warriors once again prove their unthinkable superiority over all challengers!" the announcer bawled out, pivoting to the chaotic scene. "Dandy Man, a genius superhero with yet another alter ego of Randy Man, the world's strongest and toughest superhero, has been eliminated by collapsing onto the ground in a ruined section of the arena! A series of quick eliminations here! Could it be that this tournament has left our competitors too tired to compete at full strength after so much time fighting equal opponents at the peak level of their skills? Either way, Dandy Man's elimination leaves only one superhero in this competition! We can only hope that he doesn't run into one of the Cursed Warriors and leaves his faction wiped out!"
In yet another corner of the arena, a humanoid in a pest exterminator uniform, zipped up at the top and showing only a white, metallic, dome-shaped platform and a ball with a black opening in the middle where a lone camera lens moved up and down while the whole ball rolled vertically and horizontally to the side to adjust where the camera looked, flung tube-shaped gadgets that blew up with blinding flashes in all directions.
"Guys!" it called out, "I'm Exterminator Model: Night Vision! I can't see anything! Am I killing all the monsters yet? I can't hear you, guys!"
One of the stray flash bombs that the Exterminator was flinging around nearly hit Papagei, a Sky Warrior square in the face. The flashbang that came from it sent the Sky Warrior down, tangled in his own red hood cloak. Had it not been for the brass claws on Papagei's feet grabbing hold to a mound of rocky wreckage and breaking his fall with a grazing rumble of claws against the stone surface, Papagei might have gotten tied up in his own cape and injured.
"You absolute buffoon!" Papagei yelled out at Model: Night Vision, flipping back over his head and flinging a piece of debris lodged in Papagei's brass claws aimed straight at the camera lens of his aloof opponent. "You'll seriously hurt someone with your carelessness!"
The piece of debris socked the Exterminator square in the side of the head with a resounding crack, shattering the rock and damaging the night vision system that the Exterminator had for a head. The poor slayer of monsters flopped on their side, losing a few metal plates and screws because of that crude fall. Papagei didn't expect the Exterminator to get hit by that desperate and angry fling at all, let alone to fall this grievously, so he hovered with his hood spread to assist his flight closer to the fallen Exterminator.
"I… I apologize, I acted brashly and out of anger, are you okay?" the Sky Warrior modeling his fighting style after the macaw wondered, leaning down to peek at the condition of the Exterminator.
"Huh…" the Exterminator perked their head up and rolled the camera upward to gaze upon the Sky Warrior that descended closer and offered their apology for the unfortunate incident between them. "A monster!" it flipped out. "Guys, I've encountered a bona fide monster and I'll need some backup in the quadrant 32:14. I'm operating in daylight conditions here, so my vision is severely impaired!"
"Wh… What?" Papagei turned his head to the side in confusion while metallic segments, magnetized by a field of static electricity that connected them positioned around him, distracting the Sky Warrior from the comedic scene before a current of very live lightning connected the metallic segments into an electric whip. Papagei soared into the skies, eluding the complex network of lightning whips before escaping from their range. "This warrior is completely unable to see a damn thing. They're a danger to this competition and the other competitors this way. It might be for the better if I eliminate them," the Sky Warrior decided.
"Spirit Art: Chatter Wall!" Papagei chanted out, disconnecting both stone beak-like pincers on his arms, and locking each of the separate pincer halves into a single half, before forming a double-sized pincer from each separate arm of interconnected pincer halves. The super-sized pincer pinched with a calamitous thunderclap, sending a wave of electrified air at the blinded and confused Exterminator. The concussive wall of electrified air scattered the lightning whips to the sides and left a clear opening for Papagei to eliminate the Exterminator as a mercy for their predicament.
"Spirit Art: Macaw Crash!" Papagei yelled out, spreading his arms and the flaps of his cloak decorated with colorful feathers to the sides while reattaching his pincer gauntlets to form tunneling airwaves of compressed air and sound with a snapping pinch. Then, the Sky Warrior slammed his arms and recently re-separated pincer gauntlets together to force the separate tunnels of air and sound waves to collide and create a tunneling wave of a bright white sonic boom.
The Exterminator swung their lightning whip, using it as a means to wrap around a rocky peak farther away and pull themselves out of harm's way. Then, the Exterminator skidded across the ground while reaching for their utility belt and popping out a handful of black tubes.
"So, you're an awfully noisy monster, aren't you? That works fine by me. I guess I won't need that backup after all!" Exterminator Model: Night Vision declared before flinging the black tubes in a mad rush of bombardment. Papagei gritted his teeth and began evasive maneuvers, but the explosive force of the gadgets his opponent used was too powerful and their bombs were too many to evade them. A stray blast hit too close for comfort, sending Papagei soaring down without proper control of their descent.
Papagei did his best to correct his position and break his fall with a heavy weave of his cloak wings but the Exterminator's lightning whip wrapped around Papagei's sides and slammed them outside of the arena's bounds, leaving the fallen Sky Warrior in a little crater, grumbling and feeling his aching sides.
"Whoa! Exterminator Model: Night Vision just eliminated Papagei of the Sky Warriors! This leaves only two Sky Warriors left in the competition and 82 contestants in total! What an unexpected development, considering that the Exterminators are supposed to be called into action to deal with monstrous threats like spirits, demons, and fabled beasts!" the announcer declared.
"Ah… I seem to have eliminated the wrong competitor, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry," Exterminator Model: Night Vision softened their tone of voice, pressing their hands to their lap and bowing with a hint of feminine body language and voice. "Although, you should partly blame yourself too. When you're a human being and you dress yourself like a bird, you're bound to get mixed up with a monster someday so you should be glad it was in the middle of a competition and not out in the wild, where an Exterminator could have actually killed you."
"No one else is as blind as you!" Papagei cursed, pulling himself together and fumbling back on his knees while shaking his heavy pincer gauntlet over his head. "You're the one that should surrender this competition and stop giving everyone else trouble!"
"That's so insensitive!" the Exterminator leaned back, seeming almost a little offended by the suggestion. "For your information, my body has been altered to provide me with night vision sensory abilities. I am thoroughly unsuited for competition in the middle of the day, let alone in a place where sunlight is as merciless as here. I'm thoroughly blinded all the time."
"I cannot believe that someone like this did me in…" Papagei sighed and accepted assistance from the local healers who led him outside and to the infirmary facilities to get his bone fractures and scrapes checked out.
A thunderous metallic clang echoed through the busy section of the arena. A veteran samurai in a white dogi and silver hair stumbled back but maintained a stalwart defensive posture while a shaggy hair samurai with a dirty orange haori with floral motifs approached with a careless, sword off to the side and pointing down position while scratching his ear with a pinky.
"What are you doing, you scoundrel!?" Konishi Gokojin hissed with a sweaty forehead, realizing the opponent he stood against and the very real resolve he had to send him to the afterlife. The unkempt swordsman simply attacked him out of the blue and might have ended up cutting him down if Konishi had just a few years less experience under his belt. Ironically enough, if he had less experience, he might have provided a better physical challenge to this unruly traitor of the samurai faction.
"What's the matter? You were supposed to be this mighty samurai once, right? You stood alone against a platoon of a traitorous captain's forces some thirty years ago, right? I couldn't stop hearing it back when I was working, even if I tried. Your loyalty, your skill… I had expected someone like you to despise me like an irredeemable lowlife with every fiber of your being and put those master swordsman skills to the test by cutting me down in a blink," Soragen said with some slight aggravation behind his voice while scratching his head and picking his own fleas.
"You mean to tell me you want me to kill you?" Konishi wheezed in disbelief. "Lad, I'm a few decades too old to hate people. But I've got just enough experience to know someone who's suffering because of the life we've chosen and I think I can help. Lower your sword before one of the other samurai sees you and I can help you with what you're suffering with."
"You stupid old man…" Soragen gritted his teeth. With a mad slide, he skidded at his opponent from down low, thrusting his blade at the shin section and forcing Konishi to flip his sword upside down and deflect the thrust to defend himself. Having exposed an unfavorable position, Soragen slammed a careless one-handed swing to Konishi's side, taking full control of the engagement as the old man pressed his sword to the side with a desperate block.
In a blurry flash, Soragen was up in the air. Konishi blanked out, realizing that his opponent had an opening to slash straight at his eyes or to split his head open with a vertical cut. Instead, Soragen positioned his blade to catch and reflect the ample sunlight and blind his opponent with a reflective flash before vanishing without a trace again. A chilling crack later, Soragen was flipping back from an aerial attack into a neutral standing position.
A myriad of silver flashes lit up and died out all across the veteran samurai's body before spilling his blood in a dozen spots where the mad dog had cut him in an instant. Despite fighting like a bandit, swinging his sword around with just one arm like a child flinging a stick around, Soragen had incomparable natural swordsman's instincts and could beat any style with his improvised, childish routine and he had the natural body and build of a master swordsman, let alone the skill to outpace and out-sword anyone in the world.
As he went down in a pool of his own blood, with a blanked-out stare that couldn't focus and make out a clear view of the chaos that the samurai have unleashed on the battlefield, Konishi returned to his youth, realizing that if he had met Soragen as a young man, he'd have provided a better challenge to the absolute monster of potential and talent that was Hanamuro Soragen, but Konishi would have undoubtedly perished. It was only now, because of his incomparable battlefield experience, that Konishi defended his vitals well enough to survive, rather than to hunger for battle and victory and leave himself too open, resulting in an instant death.
"All the help I wanted from you was for you to cut me down," Soragen finished his earlier thought while brandishing his sword over on his shoulders and dripping Konishi's blood off its blade down over his orange haori. "Though I guess you can't do that now in your current state. You did well to defend yourself. Saved your life, stubborn old man," Soragen said while walking away to look for an early grave elsewhere.