Chapter 313 Northern Vs Caladhel [Part 2]
Cal after gritting his teeth, swung to his feet and snarled:
"Velocity Dash!"
He disappeared, drawing a straight line of speed that caused even the snow to rise up in awe of it. Cal closed the distance in an instant. His sword arced through the air, with a trail of lightning.
Northern barely managed to bring the Mortal Blade up to parry. The clash sent shockwaves through his arms, nearly numbing them.
He was already very tired but was painfully managing to hold on and being careful enough not to extinguish his reserve of void essence, since he still had to deal with whatever Raven was dealing with in that mountain, or at the very least be of reasonable help to her.
Gritting his teeth, Northern pushed back, using the momentum to create space. He shifted his stance, embracing the irregularity of Chaos. And once again moving so erratically and formlessly that Cal's gaze went here and there, unsure what to predict or expect.
Cal exercised a little patience and suddenly his eyes narrowed, tracking Northern's last movement.
He lunged forward with Velocity Dash to intercept before the next, Stainless a streak of yellow.
The moment he reached, Northern twisted, the blade missing him by a hair's breadth. He countered with a swift slash, but Cal was already out of range.
Cal attacked again, this time with a series of lightning-fast strikes and Northern defended, doing away with wasteful movements, he acutely deflected all of Cal's attacks with equal match of speed, while even paying attention to the subtle shift in Cal's footwork.
He was using it to learn, comparing its fundamentalism to that of Chaos.
And it was taking a while to have any grasp but Northern continued, also making sure his little experiment did not interrupt his battle with a Sage.
Northern might have missed it, but right now, he was matching the skill and wit of a Sage and even daring to experiment improvement in the process of it.
Oftentimes, does he look down on himself, really.
While defending, Cal's sword grew faster, crackling with hurtful sparks of lightning which blurred the movement of the sword, Northern still was matching up, the Mortal Blade showed more signs of slouching, and was as effective in his hands as the Soul Taker was.
Suddenly, Cal moved his legs and swiped below, in that moment Northern's eyes widened,
'What a foul play!'
He complained internally, as he felt his leg slide across the icy ground.
In that split second of imbalance, Cal grinned at the opening he had forcibly created, flashing Stainless towards Northern's exposed flank.
As the blade came, Northern let himself fall, using the momentum to roll away.
The blade passed harmlessly overhead. As he came up, Northern realized something had changed. The fall, that moment of uncontrolled chaos, had sparked something within him.
What if all the while, he had been putting too much effort into controlling Chaos instead of letting it be, he had been trying to cause it to match his own style instead of matching his own style to it.
To put it in simpler terms, he should be incorporating Formless into Chaos, not trying to incorporate Chaos into Formless.
With a simple mantra that Formlessness can be Chaotic but Chaos itself can never be Formless.
There was a form and pattern to Chaos as a footwork.
He didn't need to eradicate that, he just needed to accept it and attune himself to it.
Northern's eyes opened in that moment, it was like he entered an epiphany.
He rose, his stance different now.
There was a fluidity to his movements that hadn't been there before.
The Chaos footwork was evolving, becoming something more.
Cal, noticing the change, furrowed his brow slightly.
He charged again, but this time Northern was ready. He met Cal's attack with a series of unconventional moves, his blade weaving an unpredictable pattern.
For the first time since he got conversant with the sword, Cal found himself struggling to read and bypass his opponent.
Northern's strikes came from impossible angles, his footwork a confusing dance of advance and retreat.
Northern pressed his advantage, the Mortal Blade viciously arching through the air. Cal parried each blow, but he was being pushed back.
After one mighty push back from Northern's attack, Cal gritted his teeth and suddenly shot forward, unleashing a devastating counterattack with a mutter:
"Sonic Surge"
Stainless became a storm of yellow lightning, striking from all directions at once.
Northern's Chaos eyes widened as he realized he couldn't block them all.
In that moment of desperation, the realization came bare before Northern's eyes—instead of desperately trying to maneuver it, rather give yourself to it.
He after all is the embodiment of Chaos, how bad could it be—with those words resounding in his head, Northern surrendered himself completely to Chaos.
His body moved on its own, twisting and bending in ways he never thought possible.
Somehow, impossibly, he avoided the worst of the onslaught.
Cal's eyes widened in disbelief. No one had ever survived that ability before. Because its combination with Stainless' nature of lightning came together to create a devastating form of attack.
This signature ability of his had proven itself over and over again by always exterminating his enemies.
Yet Northern stood before him, breathing heavily, small cuts adorning his face, but very much alive.
The Night Terror armor was untouched, not even a tiny scratch.
Cal stood dumbfounded, unsure of what to do… or say… the next minute however, his voice frustratingly crawled out.
"You… what are you?"
Northern's lips widened, wearing a smug grin upon his face.
"What am I? Ah ah… you see Cal, the thing is, I am just on a pilgrim of answer to that question myself. Who am I? What am I?"
He breathed before he continued, standing upright.
"You know, they say that the difference between a hero and a villain is what they choose to do with the hurt they feel, they say a hero chooses to never let it happen to someone else, while a villain…" He sighed.
"...lets it consume him and inflicts it upon everyone else. Sometimes I wonder, will I become a villain the moment Chaos consumes me, or am I one already."
He looked down, his countenance falling for a moment as he said:
"One thing I know for the very least is that I'm no hero. Because I can feel whatever makes me human slipping away from my hand with each soul I extinguish… Chaos and Void keeps consuming everything within me."
Northern raised his head to Cal with a slight show of happiness, vividly faked however.
"That is why I'm trying to avoid killing humans, for some reason I am kinda scared of the changes that will happen inside of me should I kill a human."