BloodStar

Chapter 126: Void Sphere

Karasu tore his loose robe top from his body throwing it aside as he began to power up calling upon every last iota of ki at his disposal.

He then assumed an offensive stance and yelled to Xenia, “Few have survived to tell the tale of the Karasu Clan’s trump card. Consider it an honor to have pushed me this far.”

Xenia scoffed, “I hardly feel honored. And while your Void Strike may very well be a trump card level attack, it hardly scares me.”

Karasu grimaced at the sound of her words and felt the pit of despair in his stomach reach even deeper to new depths of hopelessness as he thought, “How does she know of the Void Strike? It is a closely guarded secret.”

Xenia began to laugh as she walked towards Karasu casually twirling her sword creating a whirring noise and spinning disc of red ki as it begun to spin faster and faster. She called out to him, “Don’t look so sad Karasu. You should feel honored to die by my hand.”

Without further hesitation, Karasu condensed his ki into his clan’s sacred blade giving it a black glowing aura. He then swung the blade with all of his might sending a horizontal curvilinear attack of black ki towards Xenia.

She gracefully somersaulted over it without the attack touching even a single strand of her hair. She taunted him saying, “The Karasu Clan’s Void Strike is an impressive attack were it not for the glaring weakness of being so slow and sluggish. You are all but telegraphing where you intend to strike. That simply won’t do against a fighter of my caliber.”

She continued to walk towards him, and Karasu began to laugh, “Such words are true of seats training under me. You know quite a bit of my technique Xenia; I will give you that. However, allow me to give you insight to what a Master of the technique can do!”

He then fired two back-to-back vertical Void Strikes at her. She sidestepped each gracefully once again without a single strand of her hair or cape coming into contact with the attacks.

Karasu growled loudly and flexed his muscles all over his body as he poured even more ki into his blade this time executing two vertical strikes followed by a single horizontal Void Strike.

Xenia put her sword away, bloodbending it securely to her lower back, and ran at full speed towards the strikes twirling and dancing around the vertical strikes. Without looking, she then performed a perfectly timed and graceful backflip over the horizontal strike landing squarely on her feet before turning and continuing her slow walk towards Karasu.

Karasu began to step backwards to maintain space between himself and Xenia as she slowly walked him down.

He called upon his ki once more as he began to yell gathering and concentrating his black aura into his clan’s sacred blade capable of channeling ki quickly into void energy overcoming the techniques weakness.

This time he continued to execute Void Strikes in rapid succession. He fired off no less than ten Void Strikes including horizontal, vertical, and diagonal strikes. The rapid succession of the strikes made dodging them all but impossible. One would need precision, speed, anticipation, and a reckless abandonment for one’s own life to even dare to think of maneuvering around such an impossible combination of attacks.

Karasu grinned to himself as he witnessed Xenia prepare to do the unthinkable. She stood in place with her eyes closed anticipating the strikes as they flew towards her. She then opened her eyes at the last second and performed a series of acrobatic and gymnastic movements including twirls, flips, somersaults, and contortions of inhuman skill level.

The combination of strength, grace, speed, agility, intelligence, courage, and arrogance proved successful as she miraculously landed in a kneeling position with the Void Strikes completely missing her save for one strand of misplaced hair which she angrily scowled at.

The Void Strikes continued flying off in the distance behind her smashing into various rock formations which were sent promptly into the void never to be seen in this dimension again.

Xenia maintained an angered expression at the loss of her single hair strand seeing it as a failure on her part. She called out to Karasu, “If that is all you have then I am not in the mood to keep playing with my food. I plan to cut you up and serve you as the centerpiece dish of a grand feast to celebrate my victory!”

Karasu grit his teeth as he softly said to himself, “The gods are truly cruel to give such a crazy bitch an immense amount of talent and power. But I’m not done yet.”

He smiled at Xenia and called out to her, “If you can block this next attack then you have my permission to dine on me as your spoils of victory. But don’t start the preparations just yet!”

She smiled at his dark humor in accepting his fate as a stuffed pig at the head of her table and stopped. She then waved her hand encouraging him to attack when ready. She drew her sword and shouted, “Deal! I promise to not dodge your next pathetic attack!”

Karasu smiled knowing that he had just been given the best chance of landing a solid attack on her. He yelled at the top of his lungs as the ground beneath him began to quake and the black aura feeding into his sword began to accumulate to unseen amounts on the blade of his sword.

He continued to yell and power up taking every second he could to increase the power of his attack.

The quaking of the ground and the rumble of the gathering ki around Karasu’s sword brought a dazed Jacek back to full awareness having suffered a serious concussion. He found himself constrained entirely by Xenia’s bloodbending.

He looked around thinking to himself, “How can she fight Karasu and hold me down? I refuse to believe it! I won’t let it happen!”

Jacek began to gather massive amounts of ki energy around himself while Karasu did the same. His eyes rolled back, and his body illuminated with a yellow surge of energy.

Xenia could feel the resistance against her bloodbending; she briefly took her eyes off of Karasu to look back at Jacek as she struggled to maintain her hold on him while also preparing for Karasu’s attack. In the brief lapse of focus, Karasu took the opportunity to crush his ki stone from Erika activating it and raising his ki by no less than 50%.

With an enormous boost of power, Xenia whipped her head back around towards Karasu wondering, “What the hell just happened?! That wasn’t a normal power boost. It came from nowhere, and it was raw power. That was a ki stone! Erika Sage! You are dead the next time I see you!”

Xenia struggled with her split focus on two very powerful opponents and her anger for Erika in the moment. However, she ultimately thought herself capable of taking on the ever-taller task of taking on both Jacek and Karasu.

Karasu held his sword with one hand and raised his other free hand as he began to extract the void ki from his sword and into a ball floating above his palm. He continued to accumulate the void ki into a large void sphere that glittered black and purple as if peering into a different, darker dimension.

He drained the near entirety of his remaining ki and Erika’s additional ki from the ki stone into the blade which he then continued to extract into a void sphere.

Xenia held BloodBane with a defensive position as she was forced to take his attack more seriously as she witnessed it evolve to an extremely powerful attack right before her eyes.

Karasu then yelled, “You have underestimated the strength of your opponent for the last time, Xenia BloodStar!!!!!”

He then launched the void sphere directly at Xenia as she prepared to receive the attack head on. Karasu fell to his knees in exhaustion but with a smile on his face. He thought to himself, “She intends to receive it? The fool! The void energy will obliterate her into another dimension upon contact!”

Xenia steeled herself preparing to receive the blast as it rocketed towards her. As it approached she yelled and swung her sword at the blast stopping it in its tracks. She stood at a stalemate with the sphere of void energy until inch by inch her feet began to slide backwards in the dirt leaving a trail where she once stood.

She grunted and yelled as she held the suddenly awkward double-bladed saber against the attack. She yelled as she twisted the middle of her hilt separating her double-bladed saber into two regular swords with blades of intense red ki. She brought the other blade up and slammed it in the void sphere pushing back on it with ferocity.

In the same moments, Jacek grabbed his ki stone and crushed it within his clenched fist as he absorbed the excess energy from Erika’s stone. His body became a pure outline of yellow ki, and lightning strikes began to fill the ambient air surrounding his body. He yelled as he threw his head back into the air sending a beam of pure yellow ki into the air disintegrating the rocks that had crumbled upon him.

His energy was unbounding as he stood at the center of a deep crater devoid of all rock, tree, and other debris. He looked to Xenia struggling with the void sphere and flexed his muscles against her bloodbending control on him. He smoothly raised his arm to gather a ball of ki at her.

Xenia yelled at the top of her lungs in pure frustration as she came to the realization that she couldn’t bloodbend Jacek and parry Karasu’s attack both at the same time. She relinquished her bloodbending hold of Jacek and gave her full focus to the void sphere in front of her.

The void energy began to bend around her blades as she struggled, and Jacek held his attack at the ready without launching it at her from behind just yet. The void energy warped the surroundings as reality fizzled in and out from a dark dimension surrounding Xenia as she struggled to deflect the attack.

Just as dimensional rips were bounding on the precipice of running rampant and swallowing the reality where Xenia stood, she gave it her all in pushing back and slowly began to gain control of the momentum.

She took one step, then another, then two more, until finally she threw the void sphere attack at a nearby rock formation where it made contact and exploded outwardly for only a moment before condensing onto itself like a black hole consuming everything within the radius of the blast.

As the void energy disappeared, only a massive crater of emptiness remained where the energy once filled the space.

Karasu looked on in utter disbelief and dismay. His soul was crushed as he began to despair muttering to himself, “B-B-But how? How? That’s not possible! Howwww?!!!!!”

Xenia took a moment to catch her breath as she re-connected her two swords back into one and bloodbent it to her back securely. She then looked to Karasu with a furrowed brow and said, “I’ll tell you. And then I’ll kill you!”

However, before she could speak another word, a golden orb of pure yellow energy enclosed around her imprisoning her. The yellow orb then flew high into the air with her trapped within.

Jacek stood at attention with his arm outstretched controlling the yellow orb enclosed around Xenia as he sent it ever higher into the air. He stood with a determined face unmoved by any distractions. He was intent on killing Xenia.

Karasu smiled at his comrade who had clearly used the ki stone to break away from Xenia’s bloodbending and summon massive energy for this attack. Karasu looked from the mighty Jacek to the air above where the yellow orb began to crunch Xenia into a fetal position. Karasu then yelled, “On second thought Xenia, I am no longer curious! You can take your secret to blocking void energy to the grave with you!”