Flaming Light chapter 27: Prelude to chaos 7

Previously on Flaming Light… Darius Black while having a chat with Kiiara, threatens to kill her but Diana rages in along with Alexander Kensora and they both stop Darius from launching an attack. Suddenly there is an eruption that resounds throughout the entire Glory Academy. What could that possibly be?

Intro: “This is a tale of humans, beasts, and beings from other worlds. A tale of sacrifice, chaos and hope. A tale of a girl who wants to surpass the strongest but at what cost? No, this is their tale. A tale of Flaming Light.”

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Currently:

Back in the separate dimension, Neutro, Mephisto, Noctes, and Sparda continue to battle it out against Phoenix, king of Lightville and Luxxi Hertz, queen of Stormville. Phoenix’s bomber technique caused quite an explosion and once the dust settles, Neutro proceeds to have a conversation with him.

“Powerful as ever,” Neutro says. He is floating at the equivalent height of a two story building while fixing his gaze at Phoenix. In the palm of his hand is a cube with shades of black and purple, emanating some dark crimson aura.

Phoenix returns a glare at Neutro and poses a question, “Why are you so fixated on becoming ‘god’, Neutro?”

Neutro slightly chuckles and replies, “Several millennia ago, existence as humans knew it, experienced a fundamental change that led to the restructuring of the entire universe. I call it the great ascension in which humans became capable of controlling the elements of the universe, extending it to different planes of existence such as the physical and the supernatural. However, this opened up the physical world to the demonkind, the celestials and otherworldly beings. Thus began the age of war and the battle for absolute domination.”

Phoenix lets out a sigh and says, “What are you getting at?”

Neutro faintly smiles and responds, “Indeed, it was a monumental feat that humans could manipulate the elements but yet humans were still not at the zenith of power. Except for I, you and a few others who have been able to achieve not just ‘Imperial Ascension’ but also ‘Empyrean Liberation’, the rest are simply not strong enough to challenge the likes of the celestial or demon emperors. With this in mind, it goes to show that humans are still fragile creatures in the grand scheme of the universe. I cannot stand still, knowing that such fragility is likely to hold me back while there is definitely an opportunity for me to climb to the very top and become not just the strongest being in existence but also the bearer of the title, the almighty.”

Phoenix stares at Neutro and says, “You want to challenge God–”

Neutro interjects, “I am going to conquer whoever the author and creator of this universe is. And when I am victorious, I will become the absolute authority who wields and determines his own fate by his own hands. I will evolve the world around me and forge a new reality where only the strong survive. A reality where humans are no longer fragile beings.”

He then extends a proposal to Phoenix, “Join me Phoenix Falcon and together we shall usher in the age of the Sovereign Echelone. You, I and a select few shall shape reality and the very essence of existence to our liking.”

Phoenix is silent for a moment while staring at Neutro and replies, “You intend to achieve this lofty goal of yours by sacrificing innocent people through the activation of the lost artifact, correct?”

Neutro smiles and responds, “For evolution, sacrifice is necessary and the weak are only useful to serve as the stepping stone to transcendence for the strong. This is the universal law of reality that the weak die and only the strong survive.”

Phoenix sighs and replies, “I see. I expected nothing less of the dark emperor. You are wrong, Neutro. You have always been and will always be… wrong! The weak are not meant to serve as a stepping stone rather the strong should protect the weak so that the weak can also become strong. That is how the universe is preserved and evolution can happen as people can learn from each other in order to grow.”

“More importantly Neutro,” Phoenix continues as he intensifies his glare at Neutro. “Who made you god of the human race that you can so easily decide on the fate of the universe?” he asks.

Neutro stares into Phoenix’s eyes, “Who made me god?”

“WHO MADE ME GOD?” he repeats. “Until now, no human ever stood at the apex of creation, not you, not I, not the demonkind, not the beasts and not even the celestials but no longer shall that be the story, I shall fill that void. Behold, a new age is upon us, an age of transcendence but it shall not be without sacrifices, for chaos is coming. When all the pieces are in place, we shall usher in a new reality, and shall be known as the eclipse that heralds a new dawn, ‘END’.”

Phoenix responds, “And suppose there are survivors in this new world, you expect them to worship you knowing fully well the heinous calamity you would have brought upon all existence?”

Neutro smiles, “What would it matter? I will basically rewrite history. After all, history is but a journal of the strongest, the victors of battle. For who determines truth other than those that remain?”

Phoenix exhales and takes a fighting stance, “I understand and I completely refuse your offer, Neutro. We are done talking.”

“Indeed,” Neutro replies. “The next time we meet, there shall not be another offer. As you have refused, you shall perish along with this reality although I believe you may have other formidable threats approaching soon.”

Simultaneously, Luxxi and Sparda are engaged in a conversation while trading blows. Sparda pauses and asks Luxxi, “You who are from the land of Storms, possessing the unique attributes of chaos, why do you oppose an emissary of your god?”

Luxxi replies, “My god? What are you talking about?”.

“Kahos, as you people refer to her,” Sparda responds.

“Oh I see,” Luxxi says. She adds, “I don’t give a shit about any ‘god’ or emissary who dares to attack me, my family or friends.”

Sparda becomes furious and shouts, “You dare insult the name of her lordship?! I will extirpate you from the face of the earth!”

“A–”, he proceeds to unleash something but is instantly stopped by Neutro.

“Time to leave, Sparda, Noctes, Mephisto,” Neutro quickly calls out.

Sparda hisses and utters to Luxxi, “We shall finish this another time and then I will execute you for your blasphemy against the Chaos Empress.” He says this and instantly appears at Neutro’s side along with Mephisto and Noctes.

Luxxi turns to face them and shouts, “Where do you think you’re all going?!”

She stretches her right hand and her eyes spark with lightning. She proceeds to release a surge of lightning aura and says, “Awaken!”

Instantly, there is a vast increase in the atmospheric pressure and multiple bolts of lightning start to span continuously across the entire dimension reverberating loud crackles of thunderous sounds.

However, when this happens, Neutro smiles. With haste, Phoenix quickly calls out to Luxxi, “Luxxi, wait!” and in a flash, Phoenix dissipates into tiny flames of fire and instantaneously appears next to Luxxi. He swiftly grabs her and they both vanish out of the dimension. Immediately, the dimension implodes, absorbing everything within it into a single point until the dimension completely ceases to exist.

Phoenix and Luxxi resurface in the regular world but the effects of Luxxi’s awakening is transferred from the previous dimension causing immense damage to everything within Glory Academy. Also, because this was an awakening from someone such as Luxxi, the atmospheric pressure becomes so heavy that except for warriors of a certain power level, beings within the range of Glory Academy found it almost impossible to breathe, let alone stand. The ground also starts to crack at various places with some of the rocks levitating from the ground. Some students, regular individuals who came to watch the Glory games and some low level demons were lying flat on the ground and on the verge of death.

Luxxi, unaware that others are currently affected by her awakened aura, looks up to the sky where Neutro, Sparda, Noctes and Mephisto are situated. In her awakened state, she is enshrouded by golden white aura and bolts of lightning continuously emanate from every part of her body. A halo made of lightning bolts appears behind her. A small crown of lightning slowly starts to materialize on her forehead.

She is about to make a move for them but Phoenix taps her on the shoulder. “Easy now, Luxxi. Just the aura from your awakening has damaged the academy and the pressure is causing harm to the students and regular folks still trapped in this labyrinth,” he says.

“Furthermore, I noticed from my short fight with Mephisto and Noctes that those are just avatars. They are not the actual beings themselves but representations and I would say the same for Neutro. It’s why I decided to have a chat with him and hear what he had to say. It’s clear they weren’t here for a proper battle but perhaps, they had other intentions. Hence why they quickly caused the fake dimension to collapse on itself while transferring the effects of your awakening to this world,” Phoenix adds.

Luxxi hisses, exhales and deactivates her awakened state. Instantly, her body returns to its regular state while the lightning bombarding the environment vanishes and the high atmospheric pressure subsides. Her gaze remains on Neutro who is still floating in the sky with Sparda, Mephisto and Noctes.

Some minutes earlier in another location:

Meanwhile, deep within a hidden chamber located underground the school, Axion is about to have a, what it may seem to others, challenging battle against Dayve who has now activated Blazing King’s awakening, Tesla who is supercharged with a lightning pill and Erraz whose body is currently possessed by the dark entity within him. Axion looks unbothered and grabs the hilt of his sword. He slowly breathes in and exhales. Erraz decides to make a move against him but in one step, Axion appears in front of him, swings his sword horizontally, launching a slash attack. Erraz, Tesla and Dayve are quick to move and dodge the attack nonetheless, the slash is so powerful that it blows up the thick wall of earth forming a 20 feet deep crater (the equivalent of a 20 story building).

“Such immense speed and power,” Tesla says. She swiftly directs her hands at Axion and huge bolts of silver lightning converge between her palms. She proceeds to launch a huge beam of silver lightning at Axion.

“Manifest: Storm release: Silver chaos!!”

The attack moves with power, precision and speed but Axion swings his sword vertically and cuts the lightning beam in half. The shockwave from his sword swing causes a long crater on the ground from his position to Tesla’s position which is a bit of a distance. Tesla is perplexed by this. “Did he just cut through lightning like it was nothing??” She pondered.

Without wasting time, Erraz appears above Axion and assaults him with a mighty mach three punch (at three times the speed of sound) using his fist enshrouded with dark clouds. However, Axion quickly senses and evades the attack by sidestepping to his right side. Before Erraz’s fist slams into the ground, he quickly flips his body and directs his left palm at Axion’s face.

“In darkness, let all cease. Manifest: Darkness style: Black out!”

Suddenly, a powerful and mysterious wave of darkness is released from Erraz towards Axion. The wave immobilizes Axion while Erraz lands on the ground but Erraz quickly rolls backwards and is back up on his feet. Using his dark clouds enshrouded left fist, he throws a devastating blow against Axion.

“Manifest: Darkness style: Black death!”

Erraz smirks. “No one has been able to escape Black out without ‘way of the light’ as I currently know. So this should be the finishing blow,” he says to himself.

However, before the attack lands on Axion, he sidesteps and evades it. Erraz is shocked.

“What??!!” Erraz exclaims in disbelief.

Promptly, not giving Axion a chance to attack, Dayve executes a Lion’s fury attack with his right fist against Axion while Tesla rushes to strike him with some lightning attacks. Interestingly, Axion takes his sword, inverts it perpendicular to the ground such that the hilt is facing up while the blade is pointing downwards, and redirects Dayve’s incoming charge towards Tesla. Simultaneously, Erraz turns and throws another punch with his dark-cloud-enshrouded fist but Axion, with his sharp senses, notices him and uses the sheath of his sword to reposition Erraz’s hands towards Dayve. Dayve sights Erraz’s attack heading towards him and turns his body while in the air to avoid the hit. He does a backflip, pushes himself backwards in the air and lands close to Tesla; however, he barely evades Erraz’s black death and is grazed by the skill. Concurrently, Axion lets go of his sword’s sheath and slams his fist into Erraz’s solar plexus. The force from this attack is so prominent followed by a mighty boom and it smacks Erraz into the wall with an existing crater that is 20 feet deep and creates another indenture with a depth of 15 feet, completely knocking him out.

This sequence is so fast that before Tesla can react, the huge shockwave from Dayve’s lion’s fury hits her and damages some of her internal organs alongside her entire surroundings. 

“Ugh!” Tesla screams as she coughs out blood and falls to her knees.

The graze from Erraz’s punch causes Dayve, who is now next to Tesla, to cough out a good amount of blood while his Blaze King’s awakening flickers on and off.

“Damn it! Who in the world is this guy?!” Dayve, breathing heavily, mutters.

Axion sheaths his sword and turns to face Tesla and Dayve.

“I would say I’m a bit impressed with your movements and speed. Being able to pull off some high level attacks at your age is quite fascinating,” Axion says. “As a reward, I will not deliver death to you all now, rather, I will give you some time to talk and come up with a plan. Don’t disappoint me,” he adds.

Tesla lets out a deep sigh and struggles to stand however she is unstable at her feet while breathing heavily with blood dripping from her mouth. She turns to Dayve and says, “What an ass, right?” She tries to chuckle and coughs with pain again. “Damn it. Anyway, I noticed he didn’t block your attack but rather had to redirect it. Could it be that he noticed the damage from your attack was so powerful on direct hit or he just wanted an easy way to deal with me? Either way, just the shockwave from your attack has impaired me this much so I can assume that the actual hit would do way more damage,” She states. 

Tesla takes another deep breath and continues,”I am thinking that if you could further switch it up a notch then we could actually deal some major damage to him. Is that possible?”

Dayve responds, “Well, maybe if I could squeeze in every last bit of my current power, I could deliver a blow so devastating, he wouldn’t be left without a scratch. What do you have in mind?”

Tesla proceeds to whisper to Dayve’s ear, “I’ll be quick. Based on the way the lightning pill works, I only have a few seconds of fight left in me. I need you to buy me some time so I can charge up the remaining energy left in me to unleash a combo attack that should create an opening for you. With your current attack power, among those of us students here now, I believe only you can discharge a move so powerful to take him out.”

Dayve lets out a faint smile and replies,”How long are we talking about here?”

Tesla exhales and says, “Anything between thirty seconds to a minute should be sufficient for me.”

“However, I must say, once I unleash my combo, I will be totally exhausted and unable to provide anymore support so try to make your final assault connect,” she adds.

Dayve inhales and proceeds to crack his knuckles. “Fine by me,” he says. He then exhales and adds, “Let’s go!” Immediately, there is an increase in the atmospheric pressure and Dayve starts to shine with intense light and heat. The flame haze swirling around him and the fiery halo on his head become brilliantly radiant. His Blaze King’s awakening state stabilizes and he is surging with power once more. The upsurge in power causes the ground beneath him to crack and make tiny pieces of rock float around.

Tesla turns to Axion and says, “You are clearly way stronger than us but your arrogance will be the end of you.” She then recalls the time when Luxxi Hertz, queen of Stormville taught her the lightning pill technique.

In Tesla’s memory, 

Luxxi and Tesla are standing at the top of a very tall mountain. This place is surrounded by beautiful trees and at the center is a pool of water. Luxxi is dressed in a sleeveless white jumpsuit having some golden designs on it while Tesla is clad in sky blue jumpsuit with some violet colored designs on it. Luxxi is explaining to Tesla the reason for creating the lightning pill technique.

“Do you know why the lightning pill technique was created?” Luxxi asks Tesla and Tesla replies that she would like to hear about it from Luxxi. Luxxi goes ahead to explain it to her.

“Tesla, by now you are already aware that after the elemental dissemination, humans became aware of the cosmic truth dwelling within every human which we termed as the universe within us. Learning this, people started to train to be capable of drawing power from that universe inside of them. This led to the discovery of the five known states of power in this post-elemental age. They are Manifestation, Awakening, Resonance, Imperial Ascension and Empyrean Liberation, in order of power levels. 

Every warrior starts at the base level of Manifestation and tries to achieve at least Awakening. For prodigies, this process can start way earlier than others. During the era of the rule of the demon emperor, Belzene, most kingdoms worshipped beings who claimed to be gods and lawlessness filled the earth. In order to adapt to the everyday battles, people had to find different ways to level up as fast as possible. 

I, Luxxi, did not have the privilege of attending a prestigious school such as Glory Academy to learn the fundamentals of the universe within each of us. Nonetheless, under the tutelage of my then guardian, I learned about awakening; however, I was unable to achieve that state at such an early age. I was even younger than you are now. So, what did I do? I learned from the concept of consumption and digestion as well as the special attribute of lightning which is to ‘supercharge’. Using that understanding, I started by internally concentrating some lightning, and cultivating it into a pill by manifesting them to the material world from within my universe, which by now you already know is important to do because it further empowers the pill via the electromagnetic force of this universe. After cultivation, I consumed that pill so that I can supercharge my internal aura. The reason for this was so that I could achieve a state similar to an awakening. However, this state does not peak immediately when you consume the pill because just as nutrients spread in the body after the digestion of food, so is the same with the lightning pill. This means that you will achieve the maximum state of the lightning pill if you either forcibly activate ‘digestion’ or you wait for some time to attain that state.”

“I see. That makes a lot of sense,” Tesla replies. “Thank you, aunt Luxxi,” she adds.

Luxxi smiles and responds, “Brat, I already told you that you should just address me as Luxxi.” Tesla giggles.

“Anyway,” Luxxi continues. “When I achieved the awakening state, one would think I’d stop using the lightning pill technique; however, that was not the case as it does provide a sort of “double awakening”. So it can keep you in battle longer than usual. I also further developed the technique so that one can have multiple pills stored within them which they can release later and use for damage output amplification,” She states.

The memory fades away. Back to the present,

Tesla, facing Axion, joins her palms together, takes a deep breath and unleashes a gust of wind from her mouth.

Dayve instantly dashes for Axion and releases a barrage of attacks against him. Axion dodges the incoming combo assault of flame enhanced fists and kicks from Dayve moving at supersonic speed. Tesla, still having her palms placed together, swiftly moves to attack Axion with kicks so fast that every twelve kicks appeared as one instant kick. The three of them start moving around the underground terrain at such a high speed that it seems like they are each a streak of light flashing in the dark. While they move around, Tesla continuously releases some particles into the environment. 

After a brief moment, while high up in the room, close to the ceiling, Axion appears in front of Tesla and slams a kick into her chest but seconds before the hit makes contact, Tesla executes her ability “Manifest: Storm release: Silver Storm”. A swirling gust of wind appears behind Axion and starts to swiftly draw him in. This is accompanied with a high surge of silver lightning rampaging a very large radius and silver coloured clouds engulfing that entire space. The impact of the Axion’s kick against Tesla is reduced due to her quick thinking; however, Tesla is sent flying out of the radius of the silver storm but before she crashes into the ground, she unleashes another technique, “Silver release: Silver sphere”. This causes all the silver particles she releases earlier to converge and encapsulate the entire radius of the silver storm in a spherical shape which sort of seals Axion inside it.

“We don’t have much time, strike him now with everything you’ve got!!!” Tesla yells to Dayve as she slams into the ground, coughing out blood.

Suddenly, a medium-height wall of silver emerges from the ground some distance from Tesla and Dayve lands on it. Within microseconds, the entire underground space rumbles tremendously as Dayve says, “I have to surpass my limits!” There is a super burst of energy emanating from him and within his mind, in a flash, he sees what looks like a huge door open for a brief moment. In that door, he sees what looks like an image of himself manifesting with different colors of flames, sitting on a throne. The image fades away and Dayve is back to looking at the silver sphere though it seems like time did not move while he was having that vision.

Immediately, a hole opens up in the sphere and Tesla yells, “Now!!!”. Before she could even finish shouting, there is a loud boom which shakes the entire space as Dayve instantly appears close to Axion and lands his two fists on Axion’s chest, with his mind subconsciously executing the technique from his universe, “Fury of the blazing king: twin havoc!!!”. Without delay, a powerful explosion occurs with a blast radius of about 200 miles (roughly the size of current Texas in the United States) but the length of the explosion extends and breaks out of the dimensional barrier, reaching up to the moon. The resulting explosion causes a tremendous rumbling throughout Glory Academy. (This is what caused the ear-piercing boom that Alexander felt at the end of chapter 26). 

As the dust settles, Tesla is looking to see the outcome of their joint attack. “Did we get him?” She wonders. 

Dayve snaps back to his consciousness and is surprised as to how he unleashed such a powerful attack. He falls to the ground close to Tesla but does a flip to make his landing a soft one. Dayve is panting heavily and takes a moment to catch his breath. He turns to Tesla and smiles but Axion appears behind him and says, “I’m impressed. For a brief moment, you subconsciously tapped into your inner universe and unlocked a very small percentage of your Resonance state. I must applaud you, however–.” Dayve is shocked and swings his right fist in an arch to land a hit on Axion. Axion jumps backwards and dodges the attack. Tesla is equally shocked as she struggles to stand with both her legs wobbling while she holds her chest. “I thought we got him. Even after giving all we can for now, we could barely put a scratch on him,” She ponders. Dayve who is now exhausted as his blaze king awakening is no longer active, asks, “How are you still alive and unscathed?!”

Axion, with his emotionless and calm stare, replies, “It’s simple, you are weak.”

Axion points his sword at Dayve, holding it in a manner like one playing snooker (pool), with one hand holding the hilt and the other hand having its fingers at the tip of the blade. He proceeds to say, “I must say though, you all have potential to become really strong under the right training and circumstances. Your last move, Dayvelion Blaze was quite impressive as you forced me to even dodge using one of my atomic styles, atomic fade, to evade it. Also your binding move, Tesla, if I remember your name correctly, was a splendid execution but in all these, you all still have a long way to go.”

Axion exhales and concludes, “If you survive this attack, then let us meet again in the future and if you do not, farewell, potential prodigies.”

Dayve, standing in front of Tesla, readies his fist in a defensive stance and replies “Like I will allow—.” However, before he can finish his sentence, Axion utters, “Don’t move.” Immediately Dayve and Tesla are immobilized. They retain their consciousness but are unable to do anything. 

“Dayve stood to protect me, how charming. Had I not already fallen for Gerrar, maybe I would have fallen for you. However, right now, we both cannot move and this might as well be our last moments alive,” Tesla ponders.

Axion proceeds with his attack, “Way of the Assassin: Black Bullet.” In the blink of an eye, he blitzes to Dayve and is about to pierce right through him when another figure instantly appears and parries off the attack. The shockwave from the parry slices through the ceiling of the underground layer all the way to the surface.

Editor's note: It has been a long time since a new chapter. Hopefully, this year brings more chapters of the awesome story of Flaming Light to keep you entertained. If you enjoy this series, please like, comment and share this to keep the author motivated. Thank you!