Return of the Mythic Bloodline

Chapter 526: Taranis Vs Orion

"So this is the world that I must destroy to revive Rukadvatta," a towering man, nearly ten feet tall, announced as he emerged from a black hole like vertical rift at the garden in front of the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata. The ancient monument stood behind him, its pale marble gleaming under the moonlight.

The humanoid monster wore a long shadow like robe, its standing collars reaching all the way over his head, framing his gaunt features. The insides of the robe pulsed with a sickening purple light, carrying the same vile energy that the beasts in the forest of Gumiho had emanated. His face, like that of every monster that had emerged from the rifts, was deathly gray, its features almost entirely obscured by dark, spiderweb-like veins that spread across his skin like cracks in dried clay.

In his one hand, he carried a dark grimoire, abyss like energy emanating from its leather bound cover.

His grey eyes darted across his surroundings and narrowed at the only figure in the area, standing about fifty metres apart from him. They were the only souls visible in the otherwise deserted garden.

"Why is no one here to face me?" The monster muttered in confusion, his brow furrowing. "Was my presence so extraordinary that everyone has already fled in fear?"

He stepped forward in a graceful motion, something rare to see in beings corrupted by death, his movements fluid and deliberate, as he continued, "In that case, I just need to force them out of their hiding places and incinerate them. After all, the more they die, the higher our chances of reviving Rukadvatta."

"I almost felt goosebumps from the noble cause you are carrying," a voice came from behind the monster. His head snapped back, finding Taranis standing behind him in a relaxed posture, wearing a loose white shirt and trousers, his hands resting casually in his pockets. "I would have believed your words if not for the expression you are wearing on your face."

A wide, sickening smile was formed on the monster’s face from the mere thought of people screaming in agony. Even though he appeared stable outwardly, he was in fact nothing more than a monster fully succumbed to the corruption of death, his mind twisted with the only thought of death and destruction.

The monster did not exchange any words of greeting with Taranis, nor did he ask him any questions. He simply extended his hand toward him and whispered, "Incinerate!"

A sudden burst of dark flames erupted from his palm, engulfing Taranis in the blink of an eye.

The colourful flowers, the green grass of the garden, and the soil beneath it were burned into decayed ash the moment they came into contact with the flames. The ground blackened and cracked, the air filling with the acrid stench of destruction.

He turned forward without giving a further glance at the attack he had just unleashed. "Done with one weakling. Need to find the next targ—"

"That is rude, Archmage Orion," Taranis said, now sitting casually on the monster’s shoulder, his legs dangling. "I heard that you are a man of grace and dignity, yet you resort to sneak attacks."

Orion’s eyes widened, shock palpable on his gaunt face. Taranis knowing his name or his personality was the least of his worries. He had not sensed Raj appearing on his shoulder in the slightest.

"Get off of me," Orion muttered, moving his arm to his shoulder with a swift, clawed hand. What he grabbed was empty air, as Taranis was already standing in front of him, a few metres away.

"Y-you... are you the one who killed the Twilight Swo—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Taranis appeared over his head, his tightened fist descending upon him like a falling meteor.

"Blazing Yang Fist!"

What his punch landed on was the shadow like afterimage of Orion. The fist passed through empty air, the phantom dissipating like smoke.

"Who is the rude one here?" Orion demanded, standing a few metres away, the grimoire hovering before him, its pages lifting and fluttering with a life of their own. His grey eyes burned with indignation.

"Well, you attacked me first," Taranis shrugged, landing gracefully on the scorched ground. "I was only returning the greetings."

His lips rose in a playful smile as he continued, "I used to return the greetings with twice the generosity."

As soon as the words left Taranis’s mouth, a massive mace appeared before Orion’s face, twisting the air around it with the sheer intensity of its swing. The weapon had materialised from the shadow dimension, Grendel’s massive form emerging behind it.

The pages of Orion’s grimoire fluttered violently and stopped at a certain page, the symbols glowing with purple light, just before the mace could reach his face.

Several dark magical circles materialised around his body, and from them emerged numerous tentacles of dark flames, catching the mace with a tight grip, stopping it just a nail’s length away from his face. The air carried by the swing struck his face, fluttering his cape backward, revealing his bare, bald head beneath the shadow of his robe.

"You... Grendel..." Orion muttered, recognising the troll king holding the mace, struggling to break it free from the fiery tentacles. "How dare you betray the Do—"

"Pfft... I-I am s-sorry... cough-cough... I do not mean to la-laugh," Taranis said, clutching his mouth tightly to hold in his laughs that were still finding their way out, his shoulders shaking with barely suppressed mirth. "I did not know the Doom would send the grey moon itself to invade our world."

Orion did not need more clarification about what he was referring to as the grey moon, as his bald head gleamed under the moonlight. Even though his whole body carried cracks and veins of decay, his scalp was strangely clean and smooth, so polished that Taranis wondered if he could even see his own face reflected in it.

Veins bulged on Orion’s face from his remark, his fists tightening at his sides, yet Taranis continued, his laughter spilling out uncontrollably, "Bwahaha, do you use shoe polish to give it this mirror like property?"

His eyes squinted, shielding them with his hand as if the glare was too much to bear. "Wear the cape already! You have an unfair advantage with that shining head of yours. I can barely see your face, man!"

Even Prime broke into low growls of laughter as he tried to steady himself, placing one massive hand over his mouth, his dark body trembling with the effort of containing his amusement.

"You uncouth, wretched being!" Orion roared, fury laced in every syllable as Taranis struck the very part he was most self-conscious about. The dark flames around him flared violently, the ground beneath him cracking from the sheer force of his rage. His grey eyes burned with murderous intent, and the grimoire’s pages whipped into a frenzy, responding to his fury.

In the blink of an eye, the magical circles surrounding his body multiplied from dozens to hundreds. Tentacles of abyssal flame burst forth from each one, lashing toward Taranis and Prime from every direction like the crack of a whip.

"Go back, Prime," Taranis ordered, dismissing the troll to the Shadow Dimension while he himself vanished from his position with Void Step.

He reappeared on the opposite side of Orion, his clenched fist driving toward the latter’s knee, which was enveloped by a sphere of condensed white energy.

"Pure Yang Orb!"

"Very predictable!" Orion muttered as identical tentacles burst from the opposite side of the magic circles, forming a defensive barrier between the orb and his knee.

Bam!

The flames of darkness collided with the Pure Yang energy, causing the two polar opposites to roar as they devoured one another.

Taranis’s orb proved more powerful, burning through the dark flames. However, the sheer number of tentacles intercepting it exhausted its power before it could burn through them all.

Still, Taranis had anticipated as much. With his free hand, he had already drawn Shinku no Sabi from his inventory, its crimson blade bleeding with both dark and white energy that coiled around one another.

He swung the blade at the incoming tentacles, cleaving through them with ease. As the sword reached Orion’s body, it sliced through nothing but the afterimage of his shadow as he teleported away once again.

"You are not the only one who can teleport, rude brat," Orion muttered, still seething over Taranis’s earlier remarks.

Taranis stepped forward, vanished from his position, appeared above Orion, and thrust his sword downward.

Just as before, Orion teleported to another location. Taranis wasted no time, instantly appearing beside him and sweeping his sword in a horizontal arc.

And Orion vanished again.

Their blurred figures appeared and disappeared across the garden, flashing from one position to another as Taranis relentlessly pursued him, only for Orion to disappear at the very last moment.

Whenever a gap opened between them, Orion unleashed hundreds of tentacles of dark flame. Taranis carved through them effortlessly with his Sword Aura.

The two remained locked in a stalemate, neither able to land a decisive blow on the other.

’Tch. I thought I could make him lose focus by talking shit about his bald head, the only weakness Celestia had told me about. But he’s far more shrewd than I expected,’ Taranis muttered inwardly, irritation creeping into his thoughts.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist.

"I need to end this quickly. There are many things I still need to prepare."

Taking a deep breath, he whispered as he cut through the incoming tentacles,

"Vivi, activate Extreme Yang Transformation."