Chapter 341: New Found Strength
Laz’s body felt light as a feather and yet as hard as iron. After going through his promotion, he could feel the energy still flowing through him. His body as it was before he had reawakened could only be considered crippled, despite his rock hard abs and toned muscles.
It was like comparing a candle to the sun.
And now that his strength had returned along with his memories, he had the comparison between his body at the three different times.
Before he had lost his memory.
When he was Dean.
And now that he had reawakened.
Having all three memories fresh in his head gave him an incredible amount of insight into how strong his body was now and how to use his new found strength. He could adapt so well only because of those things. While his still perhaps didn’t know the limit of his own strength in the Void Palace realm, which he now understood was called that because of the palace in his center which could be many different things for many different people. No two were alike, just like what people would see if they peered into the void.
Laz was able to spread out his spiritual sense and see the entire process of the battle as clear as if he was standing in the middle of it. Spreading it further, he realized he could almost cover the entire area of the club grounds. That was an improvement of almost a hundred times the range of before. He was able to quickly take in what was happening all over the place as he realized just how big of a crisis they were facing.
And the most frightening image he saw was the swirling mass of black energy coming off from a large group of demon beasts that looked to be standing around while others brought live humans to them.
’What the actual fuck is... no. I can’t focus on that. One thing at a time,’ Laz told himself and stopped paying attention to everything else to focus on the battle with Death and Lyssa.
What he didn’t know was that withdrawing his sense had spared him from alerting the raccoon that was now looking at the sky with a very puzzled look on it’s rather furry face.
Laz ran hard as soon as he saw his target, the furry little fox that had been fighting with Death. Compared to the res of the group, the mist coming off from the fox was several times more robust. The interesting part when he noticed this was that the mist was a dark red, so dark in fact that Laz could even see specks of black mixed in.
’Was the mist coming from that group of demon beasts actually red in color, but due to how close they were together, it looked black?’ Laz quickly thought to himself.
’If so, that’s going to be fucking dangerous to deal with. Either way, let’s kill this little thing first.’
Without so much as a warning, Laz jumped out from behind the bushes off to the side and stood between Death and the fox. He then grinned and charged forward even before Death could say anything.
Black flames of energy covered his fist as the his body transformed. Using the long ignored Dragon Fist, Laz lashed out at the beast, striking down in an ark.
The felt the threat of this attack and retreated, just in time to avoid the strike. Laz, seeing this, then swung his leg forward in the second stance of the attack and set the beast flying. It hit several of the larger beasts that had been giving Lyssa trouble and didn’t stop until six of them had been turned into a broken pile of meat.
The fox, it’s fall stopped by the now broken bodies of it’s comrades, turned over and stood on it’s now shaking legs before glaring at Laz. A yellow light in it’s eyes radiated anger and rage as it’s body began to expand.
Before the eyes of the stunned humans, the tiny fox turned into a two legged monstrosity, it’s height well over seven feet tall it’s cracking bones reassembled with loud popping noises. While it was still furry, it’s elongated face and huge, fang filled mouth looked like the nightmare of version of a furry.
It didn’t attack right away and instead watched as Death and Lyssa came over to Laz.
Death’s face was pale but the smile on her face couldn’t be hidden. In contrast, Lyssa’s eye’s were as wide as saucers as she barely recognized the man standing in front of her.
"Why didn’t you transform?" Laz asked Death, his back to the fox monster.
"Transforming drains my energy and I had no idea how long we were going to be fighting. Since I didn’t know and couldn’t check to see if there were other enemies in the area, I was planning to run when I got a moment instead of fighting to the death," she replied without hesitation.
Laz nodded in agreement. While she had fought this thing to a standstill based on her normal strength and could have killed it once she became the avatar of Death, if there were any more beasts like this close by, she would be killed the moment she ran out of energy. Instead, it was better to let the fox toy with her until she found a safe moment to run.
Staying alive was a much better plan than needlessly dying.
"Did you bring my stuff?" Laz asked, looking at her.
Death didn’t respond right away, instead she simply smiled.
This was the man she knew, the one who had conquered her.
"Girl?" Death called out to Lyssa who was still shocked at Laz’s transformation.
"Uh? Oh, Yeah." She threw out a pouch to Laz, one that Death had told her to grab. As for whatever clothing and things he had in his room, she didn’t place any importance on it. That was something that confused Lyssa at the time. But since this woman called Death was much stronger than her, she didn’t raise any questions.
Laz smiled as he received the pouch. Death had understood that the only things he would consider valuable would be contained inside, even if he didn’t remember it. Laz used his black flames to inject a bit of energy, reached his hand in and pulled out ’Sever." Even though he hadn’t used the sword much in the past, now it seemed like the perfect tool for fighting an opponent like this. What’s more, it was a tool made for killing, something he could only appreciate now.
Laz then strapped the pack to his belt on his waist and stopped fooling around. Turning the face the fox-man beast, he couldn’t help but smile. It had been a long time since he had fought.
He didn’t know how much he would have missed this feeling.
"Foolish humans. You are nothing but our food. How dare you try to resist us." The fox said, it’s anger clear in it’s tone. While the fox wasn’t a match for the raccoon, it was still considered one of the top beasts in the fuzzy army. While it had been playful with the sweet smelling girl from before despite how dangerous he felt she was, this one standing before him was on a whole different level.
"And how many human’s have you eaten?" Laz asked playfully.
"HA. I have consumed over one hundred of you frail creatures. So many of them cried and whined as I devoured them bit by bit, their limbs staked to the ground so that they couldn’t resist. The best part was that I always used my smaller form. It made the meals so much bigger. And the pain it caused then mixed with the fear just made them more tasty as the blood pumped their their juicy bodies..." The fox started laughing as it thought about all those glorious meals.
"I didn’t really care you know. I was just mocking you. Compared to you, we humans have probably eaten thousands of pounds worth of your kind by the time they are my age. Sheesh...." Laz swung his head as though he was disappointed by the foxes answer.
"I WILL ENJOY EATING YOU MOST!" The fox said as it charged at Laz.
While it’s body did get bigger, it didn’t get nay slower. Before Laz could even process the movement with his eyes, the fox beast was in front of him with it’s jaws aimed at Laz’s neck.
Laz just cracked a smile as a black coating of light covered the blade and Laz swung forward. His eyes might not be able to keep up, but his spiritual sense was amazing.
After swinging his blade, Laz ducked to avoid the jaws and then lazily stood upright before turning around, leaving the fox beast standing there with a confused look on it’s face.
Death covered her mouth with her hands while Lyssa was just confused.
"What just..." Lyssa’s voice trailed off as the great, hulking monster of a furry beast split in two, bisected straight down the middle.
Laz noticed there wasn’t a speck of blood on his blade, but shook it off anyway before returning it to his pouch.
While the other animals stood there in shock, Laz just walked to Death and said,
"Shall we meet up with your sisters now?" He asked, his face a constant smile.
...
War was shocked.
’How is that possible? Is he really that much stronger?’ She ran the battle through her head several times before she understood one key point, the sword.
Although the girls had found weapons that suited them, they were still normal weapons. While the weapon in Laz’s hand seemed like an old saber, when he injected it with his energy, the weapon seemed to change as a light covered the blade. While the light wasn’t anything blinding or impressive, War noticed that when she scanned the blade with her limited sense, it felt like her intangible spiritual sense had been cut by a knife.
’That’s amazing.’
As War was still crouched down in the bushes, Laz, Death and Lyssa came over to here. It took Death pinching her sister’s ear to get her attention and wake her from her thoughts.
"Ouch. Why did you do that?" War asked.
"Because this is no time to be dozing off."
"Let’s go grab our sisters and get out of here" Death said, turning her head towards Laz.
"But what about the people?" Lyssa asked, the youngest of the group.
"What about them? Let’s think clearly for a moment. These people would sell us out or kill us if they had the chance. Even if you’re newly turned, you should understand that we are the enemy in their eyes," War shot back, agreeing with her sister.
Death didn’t bother mentioning about saving ’Dean’s’ friends anymore now that Laz was obviously back and things were far more dangerous than they thought.
"We can’t..." Laz finally said as everyone turned to look at him.
"Master. You can’t be serious?"
"Master... these people are not our allies..."
War and Death both complained, not forgetting his previous title to them. What’s more than that, they had now witnessed just how strong he had become since his rebirth.
And they couldn’t deny that his power both frightened and excited them at the same time.
"They aren’t allies but they aren’t enemies either. I know that this is stupid. The events in New Orleans showed me that even in the end, helping someone like this is hurting yourself. But be that as it may, I won’t turn my back on those I considered to be my friends," Laz said, the waves of his power as he spoke his conviction caused the rain to deviate away from them.
Despite being on the same level as Laz, Death and War felt their bodies shiver from the experience. They also felt their skin warm as they hearts sped up.
"My... friends are also here too..." Lyssa said, almost falling off her feet. The waves from Laz affected her even more.
"But Master... they aren’t even your...." War tried to say, but closed her mouth when his gazed fixed on her.
"I am me. But I was also Dean. Just because I am me now doesn’t change the help and support they gave me when I was Dean. I understand the absurdity of this opinion, but I won’t change who I am," Laz explained. His personality had change since he had awoken. The time he spent as Dean had shown him something he had long forgotten on the road of blood he had walked since the day he had met the homicidal bitch and his life changed forever.
’The experience of being human...’ Laz thought to himself.
Death and War could and would say nothing more, taken aback by this new Laz. In the past he had been powerful, powerful enough to conquer them.
But this new Laz was also charismatic, something that was hard for a woman to ignore.
"I know where they are. Follow me." Dean said, turning east and walking at a quick pace.
While he had scanned the area, he had noticed where Jason, Mike, Stevo and the other’s had gathered. Even if they weren’t infected, they had a unique feal to them.
And he wasn’t going to let these beasts tear them apart.
Death and War looked at one another and couldn’t help but smile.
"A man worth living for..."
"A man worth dying beside."
They said, one after another.
"Let’s go girl," they both called out to Lyssa before following after Laz.
"They are... so beautiful.... but why the hell is everyone fucking crazy?" Lyssa said out loud before noticing the had been left behind.
She then ran to catch up.
