Chapter 132: Sibling Rivalry 2

Damon and Rose looked each other. “It’s about time we get serious, don’t you think brother?” The air around Rose started to grow hazy. The atmosphere itself sizzled, as a golden flames ignited around both of Rose’s arms.

Even from a distance, Damon could feel the severe threat they posed, he knew he would be cooked, if he dared to let those flames touch him. Even though, while he had drawn first blood, he wasn’t foolish enough to think he could come out of a fight with Rose unscathed.

’It’s about to get intense isn’t it?’ He straightened as the air in the arena noticeably grew hotter, to the point that a mundane human wouldn’t be able to breathe there at all. The stagnant situation however, soon changed.

Two jets of golden flames lit Rose’s feet ablaze. Using the flames as a jetpack of sorts, to propel herself, and acting as a speed booster, Rose disappeared from Damon’s point of view. Before he could even process her disappearance, she appeared before him.

Damon’s eyes widened in reflex, hastily taking a step back, but it was for naught, as Rose pressed her right hand to his chest. Well, not quite to his chest, but close enough that even the heat resistant clothes he had specially procured sizzled and hissed.

The golden flames around her hand rapidly compressed into a small bright gold bead that radiated heat beyond what Damon could fathom. If not for aether reinforcement operating at maximum, it’s sheer presence near him would have been enough to turn him to ashes a thousand times over. The bead sucked all the light from the surroundings, making it seem as if everywhere else was dark.

Rose’s voice then fell on Damon’s ears.

“You lose again, brother.”

Bang! Even in the seemingly close distance of only around five inches between the bead and Damon, the sheer speed of the red bead still managed to break the sound barrier before hitting Damon.

Unlike it seemingly small size, the bead hit Damon’s chest with the weight of a mountain. One moment he was standing before Rose’s outstretched hand, the next the red bead was carrying him flying backwards towards the edge of the field at immense speeds.

Before they could reach the edge however, the shell of the red bean cracked, and what followed next was a blindingly searing explosion.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Incandescent flames and a blistering heatwave spread outwards, so bright that most of the students had to squint their eyes or outright close them, so tremoring, that the entire stadium shook as if hit by a magnitude seven earthquake, and so scalding that the crowd had to recoil away in reflex. But the translucent barrier covering the arena flared, successfully blocking everthing. Chunks of earth and debris in the air instantly turned to nothing.

Before the eyes of the crowd, half the field had turned into a disaster zone. The ground at the heart of the explosion and the surrounding areas literally turned to molten lava. And Damon, even an inkling of his remains were no where to be seen. And Rose, she stood some distance away from the disaster zone, unscathed, if one counted out the red blister on her palm.

-“Did she just… nuke the field?” A second year student asked in disbelief.

-“How the hell is she a first year?”

-“Yeah, during our time, we weren’t this strong.”

At the first year’s area meanwhile.

-“How the hell is she this strong?”

-“Comparing myself to her is like comparing a single tiny any, to a mundane human.”

-“Wait…” A student suddenly called out, drawing some attention. “Why didn’t the instructor move to defend him?” He asked referring to Damon.

Some of their eyes widened. -“Don’t tell me the instructor just let him get killed.” A chill went down their spine.

“Look!” Another voice etched with disbelief exclaimed. Turning to look in the direction the student was looking, they spotted an anomaly.

For the nth time today, their eyes widened in disbelief. In the direction they were looking, opposite the disaster zone, and a few dozen meters away from Rose, stood Damon. Even though that was quite surprising, that wasn’t all. The main thing was that he stood with his arms crossed, looking completely unscathed from Rose’s attack.

Expect from the scorched area on the center of his chest, one would think the atom never touched him in the first place. It took quite a few moments before the students remembered that there were two Damon’s in the first place, and the fact that he could switch places with his clones.

Damon meanwhile had something completely different on his mind. ’She isn’t supposed to be this strong at this stage.’ he thought tentatively. But Damon had a good idea of why it was so. ’It’s because of my presence again, isn’t it?’

At this stage in the novel, even though Rose and Fabian didn’t get to fight each other, they were pretty much around the same strength level, or maybe Rose slightly held the upper hand, seeing as she lasted a little longer than Fabian did against Alistair in the finals.

But this, this was entirely different. If Rose fought Fabian at the moment, it would be no different than Alistair fighting him. She would win hands down the moment she became serious. Also, what triggered this diversion from canon in Rose?

’Is it because she just can’t stomach the reality to see the lesser brother she’d been knocking down since childhood Surpass her? Or is it that I just am that good of a motivation?’ Damon mused.

’I’ll stick with the latter.’ he nodded to himself in approval, before he straightened up. Rose had already used up a lot of aether, so Damon was sure that she couldn’t make another attack of that caliber again.

Rose didn’t fail to notice that Damon still stood unscathed. With her back still turned to him, her head turned, taking him in from her pheripherals.

Damon smiled, more reflection of himself materializing next to him. “You said I lost again, but it seems you forgot that I never run out of tricks, sister.” He projected his voice.

“Is that so?” Rose asked, turning around. “Let’s put that to the test then.” she said. The moment the last syllable left her mouth, the previous jet of flames she used before reignited from her feet. But it didn’t stop there, the flames moved up, further coating Rose, kind of in the way aether reinforcement worked.

The already unfair air –if there were still any left– grew even worse. It became harder to breathe when the breathing itself scorched your lungs.

Rose’s features completely disappeared, or not, since she didn’t become the flame, but only coated herself in it, so well that it looked like she had become the flames herself.

Damon seeing this, retrieved his sword from his spatial storage, which his reflection caught. Rose took a single step, and disappeared, then she appeared before Damon, the real one, bringing a scalding hot temperature with her.

’So fast.’ Damon’s eyes widened. She had gotten even faster than when she just used the flames on her feet.

Her incandescent fist, courtesy of her flaming enhancement, cocked backwards. She then threw a straight punch right at Damon’s face, simple and brutal. Damon was sure that if that fist connected, it would punch a hole right through his head.

He didn’t have to worry about that though. While he couldn’t react to it, his reflection was more than capable of doing so.

“Fall.”

A sword fell right onto Rose’s incandescent fist, which was enroute to Damon’s face. Rose had only two options, either to continue with her onslaught and lose a hand, or retreat and try again. She chose the latter, took back her hand in an instant, and jumped back, her feet tearing thick molten lines into the earth.

The ground cracked in multiple chunks, and then split in two in a wide jagged slash, splitting the field circumference to circumference, before Damon. The attack that Rose dodged couldn’t go back after all.

After that exchange, two streaks, one glowing gold, and the other black, tire through the field in spurs of movement. Most students at the stands only saw where the two had been and not where they were.

Damon meanwhile, watched from the side –not that he wasn’t watching from the reflection’s perspective–, smiling. For the first time in his entire life, he held the upper hand over Rose.

Bang!

One of the two streaks particularly the one that was glowing gold, kicked towards the black streak. The black streak blocked with it’s sword, and held it’s ground without moving backwards. But the skin on it’s hand flared and sizzled violently, almost welding the skin to the sword.

“Damn it.” The black streak hissed, and using the sword, smacked the gold streak flying through the air.

***********

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