BOOOOOOOM!
The impact tore through the shattered ruins. A shockwave of raw force split the heavy air, sending a tremor rippling through the fractured earth. The world itself seemed to recoil, as if agony had been forcefully expelled for the briefest moment... only to return, seeping back into the cracks like an inevitability.
From the shifting haze, Uvan emerged first. Electricity crackled along his frame, arcing wildly, flickering like threads of unraveling destruction. Celia followed, her presence carried by a gust of freezing icy air. Frost crept outward from where she landed, the camp’s already broken remnants groaning beneath the sudden chill. Then Jess, flames licking at her feet, the heat warping the very air around her in shimmering distortions. And last, Lovia.. silent, weightless as the wind itself, materializing without sound, her presence an unseen current shifting through the battlefield.
A breath passed between them. A moment carved in tension.
Celia turned to Lovia, her deep blue eyes narrowing slightly. "I have a suspicion." Her voice was level, but there was calculation in the way her gaze flickered, thoughts weaving into form. "... I think Agon is still has partial control over his body. But to bring him back completely, we need to weaken The Wanderer Who Laughs. The less control it has, the stronger Agon’s grasp will become."
A pause.
She measured the weight of her words before continuing, her fingers flexing against the chilled metal of her armor. "...But that won’t be easy. Not with what it’s still holding back."
Uvan exhaled slowly. A breath of static, of something breaking loose inside him. "Then we do what we can. Together." Sparks flared from his fingertips, his resolve etched in the jagged arcs of lightning that danced across his frame. "We get it away from the camp first... no more unnecessary casualties. Attack at random sync. If it adapts too fast, we shift. No patterns."
"Clear," Jess said, embers trailing from the corner of her lips.
"Clear," Lovia echoed, the whisper of the wind carrying her words.
Celia nodded once. "He’s getting up."
All eyes turned.
From the cracked ruins, The Wanderer Who Laughs stirred. The jagged remnants of the battlefield shifted beneath its rise, yet its grin remained untouched. Agony and grief swirled in its wake like unseen tendrils curling against the edges of reality itself.
"That was fun."
In that moment... They moved.
Faster than perception. Faster than even the shattered remnants of time could process.
The Wanderers still watching from the ruins never saw or didn’t want to see what came next. One moment, the battle remained grounded... then the next, it had shifted beyond the skies.
BOOOM!
High above, beneath the muted glow of the breathless moon, the clash erupted anew.
Flames. Seething heat devoured the cold air as Jess struck first, her arm cutting through the void with a blade of fire, the sheer force erasing the very oxygen where it passed. The Wanderer Who Laughs made no attempt to dodge
PFF!
The fire dispersed into nothing.
An instant later, a hand clamped around Jess’s throat. A blur of movement, and then
CRACK!
She was flung. The force alone split the very air apart.
But before the motion could even finish...
CRACKED!
Lightning.
Uvan had already crossed the distance. His form surged with untamed destruction, a burst of electricity that rendered time irrelevant. A single strike, precise and absolute...
ZAP!
It passed through.
The Wanderer Who Laughs had already begun to dematerialize, its form unraveling into mist, a body that no longer obeyed the rules of solidity.
"It wouldn’t be fun if it were that easy, huh?"
It reformed in an instant, a shift from nothing back into existence, its hand already moving... mist coiling around its fist, an attack already aimed.
But then... A snap of cold.
GRAB!
Celia’s frost latched onto its arm before impact. Ice formed in fractal veins along the surface of the mist, solidifying reality itself around it. Uvan had already vanished from its attack range.
Celia moved. A kick... elegant, precise, a strike imbued with glacial force, crashed against its face.
Nothing.
It did not budge.
This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.
The Wanderer Who Laughs merely smiled.
"Clever. You didn’t use your real body."
His grip tightened on her leg...
And then the wind howled.
The air itself twisted into a vortex, a spiraling rupture forming beneath The Wanderer Who Laughs. The space it occupied had ceased to be solid, replaced by the gaping maw of something vast, something writhing.
A beast.
A colossal worm of shifting winds, its form a cyclone given physicality, its hunger a force beyond comprehension. It lunged, devouring The Wanderer Who Laughs whole, dragging it into the void of its body, carrying it far... far beyond the remains of the shattered camp, deep into the waiting abyss of the forest.
The battle had shifted again.
But just as swiftly as it had ended...
BOOOOOOM!
The worm exploded.
A burst of wind and void, unraveling into nothingness. And from the wreckage.. untouched, unharmed, stood The Wanderer Who Laughs, its grin now wider, its eyes alight with something almost joyful.
"More."
The word dripped with amusement. With hunger.
"More... More... Give me your best shot. Yahahaha!"
And the sky trembled.
Another laugh rippled through the air. Sharp. High-pitched. Twisted.
"Yahahaha..."
The beast’s body came apart, dissolving into spiraling wisps of wind and void, scattering like shredded mist across the battlefield. The fragments twisted, curling into nothingness, leaving only the figure at the center.. The Wanderer Who Laughs.
In that moment a sudden crackle erupted.. The air distorted. A hand wreathed in chaotic electricity tore through the space where he stood, its form jagged and unstable, its fingers twitching with destructive power. It surged forward like a phantom strike. Fast. Unnatural.
The Wanderer Who Laughs tilted his head. The grin on his face never wavered as he shifted. A simple shift, barely a movement, and the attack passed through where he had been, vanishing just as quickly.
But the moment he dodged...
BOOM.
A deafening Boom sounded and the sky became filled with fire.
A Seething Burning One....