destiny dory

Should he do it? Just forfeit the match? To admit before the crowd that their prince was too weak to fight back? After everything that had happened to him, he had no pride left, nothing to lose. Maybe it was better to accept his failure and resign himself to his shame. Lying on the ground, he raised his arm, about to surrender, but stopped, thinking back to a conversation he had with Tarnas. It was during the year of training, the two of them sitting around the campfire on an autumn night. Seraph was staring deep into the flames, into the light and warmth, but all he felt inside was cold darkness.

In their exchange, Seraph finally managed to wing Phune with a holy blast, leaving his arm numb, but with a frustrated snarl, Phune waved his other arm and hit Seraph in the leg with a sphere of water. Seraph collapsed, howling in pain as the water dissolved his clothes and flesh. He had felt this burning before, this corrosion of his skin. Noah had used acid against him during their fight, and right now, a tsunami of bad memories was washing over him. In his mind, he was back in the slums with Noah standing over him. Considering where the arena was built and where Noah was watching from, his delusion wasn’t far from reality. He couldn’t go through that pain again, that horror.

Noah then struck Viktor’s elbow, breaking his arm. Viktor screamed and tried to pull away, but Noah silenced him with a jab to the Adam’s Apple. Crippled by pain and struggling to breathe, Viktor desperately swung at Noah with his other burning hand, but just like before, Noah grabbed his arm and then broke it. Noah then slammed his knee into the young man’s solar plexus over and over, not stopping until he was puking blood. He held Viktor by the collar to keep him upright, and from there, the punches began, Noah’s fist striking Viktor’s face with rapid speed and crushing force, splattering blood and disfiguring flesh. Noah had pummeled Galvin the same way in their duel, moving his arm like a piston.