Lakshman stared at the last of the Destiny Queens, Sonia Angloid, with an expression of disbelief. He, simply, could not believe that she was standing only meters away from him when he thought he had to dig the deep ends of the Heaven Continent to find her.

“Ah…” said Sonia slowly in a soft voice as her eyes fixed steadily on him. She took a step forward and slowly said, “Phoenix Titan…”

They stared at each other silently with expressions that slowly matched each other, which was that of happiness and relief. Just then, the warm atmosphere was suddenly destroyed when the pulsating purple monster roared wildly. Its roar sent shockwaves in all directions and caused everyone to clap their hands over their ears.

The monster had sensed the warm atmosphere between Lakshman and Sonia and with its brain fuelled by revenge, only simple thoughts propped up.

“Revenge! Kill! Phoenix Titan! Revenge! Destroy! Love! Destroy! Kill! Destroy! Kill! Destroy!”

It, suddenly, opened its large mouth wide and roared in a monstrous voice, “DESTROY!!!”

Roaring wildly with rage and fury, the monster kicked off the ground and charged at Sonia and her aide, Natasha. The monster, shoved Lakshman aside and caused his feet to get dragged on the ground as the monster headed towards the two women.

“Ah!” Sonia cried out in alarm as the monster reached her and Natasha in less than a few seconds.

“RRRRAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”

It roared as it delivered a powerful fist at the two women, but it was suddenly stopped by a barrier that the maid had cast by reacting quickly. The monster began to throw punch after punch and kick after kick at the barrier at high speed in an attempt to destroy it with brute force.

Natasha struggled to keep the barrier active for so long due to her old age and Sonia remained frozen with fear beside her. The barrier would have collapsed from the weight of the monster’s blows, but lightning struck in the form of Lakshman. He zoomed towards the monster and caught its attention before delivering a powerful straight right punch to the side of its face.

The force of the blow to its face, sent the monster flying away, but not before delivering a powerful kick to Lakshman’s chest. The force of the hit, blasted Lakshman several meters through the air before he, forcibly, spun his body around to land his feet on the ground. They got dragged for a few meters before finally making him stop and he breathed a sigh just as the monster was upon him.

Lakshman looked up just in time to see the powerful kick that the monster landed on him. Upon contact, a powerful shockwave was released as the Phoenix Titan was blasted into the ground with great force. Without pausing, the monster continued to deliver blow after blow into the ground where Lakshman lay.

Being taken by surprise, Lakshman was not able to dodge the several blows the monster dealt him, pushing him deeper into the ground and causing his body to bleed from the multiple wounds on his body.

After a minute of this, having had enough of receiving the blows, Lakshman pushed his arms out and grabbed the hands of the monster. Applying his strength, he pushed the monster off him and high into the air, allowing him to jump out of the large crater. The monster, who should have been sent flying, unexpectedly landed in front of him, surprising him in the process and before he could react, the monster unleashed its right fist by digging the ground before smashing it into Lakshman’s body.

The force of impact on his body, sent him flying away at high speed and caused his body to spin several times. During the time that he spun, his face and legs smashed painfully against the ground several times. After a few seconds of flying through the air, Lakshman straightened his body on the next flip and used his hands to drag on the ground before stopping himself.

He looked at his bleeding hands with a singly disgruntled expression on his before looking toward the monster. The expression changed to that of surprise when a large energy blast, flew at him and exploded upon making contact on his face. As he staggered backwards from the shock of the explosion, more of the large energy blasts headed his way and they all exploded upon making contact with his face. The blasts originated from the monster, who held both of its hands and rapidly fired the energy blasts before sending them flying towards its target at high speed.

After firing countless energy blasts, the monster dropped its arms and opened its mouth as wide as it possible could. Inside its mouth, it began to gather energy, which took the form of a large shivering ball of energy. It took the monster a few seconds to gather the necessary energy and once it was complete, it fired the ball of energy towards Lakshman at an incredible speed.

The brilliantly glowing ball of energy, ripped through the air and quickly reached where Lakshman stood, covered by smoke. There was an enormous explosion that shook the ground that they were all standing on and threatened to drop them to the ground. They, desperately, held onto each other and tried to stay on their feet as a powerful shockwave was sent in all directions from the massive explosion.

Once the explosion was over, a great cloud of dust was shown rising into the air and the top of it appeared to take the shape of a mushroom. The monster glared fiercely at the rising smoke as the dust slowly settled before roaring wildly in happiness as it apparently felt that it destroyed its enemy.

***

Atem watched the rising smoke and wore a sad expression on his face as he felt a sinking feeling in his heart. He assumed that Lakshman was dead and he turned to look towards the wives of the Phoenix Titan and was surprised to see unconcerned expressions on their faces. All of them were staring fixedly at the rising smoke through narrowed eyes with a serious expression on their face.

“Um…” he began as he attempted to start a conversation with her. “You know that your husband is dead, right?”

Emilia, slowly, turned to look at him and he was startled as she gave him a reproachful look before she spoke to him.

“Don’t be so judgemental about my husband,” said Emilia in a powerful voice with a serious expression on her face. “Comparing us to that monster, we are no match, but don’t apply the same concept for my husband. There is no way that Lucky is defeated by something as weak as this!”

He was taken aback at how confident she was about the survival of her husband when the rest of his wives did not. Looking towards

***

The smoke had spread in all directions for several meters and clouded everything within it. As it slowly cleared, Lakshman came into visible focus and his wives, seeing their husband alive and well, began to cheer happily. Ondine, Emilia and Sumara wiped a tear that trickled down their faces as they were worried deep within, but did not want to show it on the outside. Cantia was grinning broadly in great happiness while Tetra and Silvera were nodding their heads in satisfaction while also smiling happily.

Lakshman breathed a sigh before he looked down at the state of his clothes, which surprised him greatly. His shirt was shredded into nothing by the explosion, leaving him bare chested and there were several holes in his pants that made it seem like he was wearing ragged clothes.

“Oh no!” he exclaimed in a shocked voice with a worried expression on his face. “My professional clothes; they’re ruined! Damn… Ondine is going to be very upset about this…”

Ondine bought him that shirt during one of the times that they visited the shops after their marriage. Tetra, with the support of his other wives, wanted him to wear smooth type of clothes while she wanted him to put on some flashy clothing. An argument broke out between the two ladies and Lakshman solved the matter by buying it because he wanted to please Ondine, which she was happy about. So, with the only shirt she bought for him ruined, he had a feeling she will be most upset.

He looked towards the monster and glared at it fiercely while gritting his teeth in anger.

“You’ll pay for this!” he shouted at the monster in a fierce voice.

The monster, initially surprised to see that he was still alive, began to roar and surge with power. As it did, the monster was suddenly surrounded by a dark-violet aura and caused Lakshman’s eyes to widen with shock. The reason for his reaction was because the monster’s power was similar to that of a demon’s power.

Tetra and Silvera, instantly recognised the power releasing from the monster was that of a demon. They glanced at each other once before nodding silently in agreement before telepathically communicating with Lakshman.

“Lucky, that monster is a demon!” Tetra reported to him and confirmed his suspicions in the process.

“I might be of help, Lucky, since I’m a Demon Slayer,” suggested Silvera telepathically to him.

“We can kill it together!” the both of them telepathically said at almost the same time.

Lakshman smiled at how helpful his two wives wanted to be, but he shook his head in disagreement before telepathically speaking to them.

“Thanks for the helpful words, ladies, but I’ll be fine and you needn’t worry about killing it; I don’t plan on doing it.”

“Huh?” Silvera telepathically said and she sounded very surprised. “How do you plan on winning if you don’t kill it?”

Lakshman shook his head again and telepathically said, “Winning a battle isn’t by killing your opponent; it’s by defeating them. Besides, the battle’s already won; it’s that you, they, them and it aren’t aware of it yet.”

By ‘you,’ he referred to Tetra and Silvera, by ‘they,’ he referred to his other wives and Atem, by ‘them,’ he referred to the angels that just descended a while ago and by ‘it,’ he referred to the monster that was surging with wild twisted power.

Tetra, very concerned for his mental health, telepathically said, “I know you obtained your full powers along with your past memories, so I hope your current confidence is your firm belief than boasted by your overconfidence in your new found powers.”

At those words, Lakshman laughed before he telepathically replied by saying, “Tetra, you’re always so negative. Be positive for a change.”

“I’m trying…” she said in a disgruntled voice.

He smiled and telepathically said, “Right. Watch as your husband takes the monster down with a single punch!”

“One punch?!” Tetra and Silvera cried out in great shock from hearing his words.

As he chuckled to himself, he felt the ground shake as the monster kicked off from its position and charged towards him at high speed. The monster roared through the sky and reached him in a matter of seconds before swinging its large fist at him, but it was shocked when Lakshman disappeared in an instant.

Using its power, the monster landed on its feet and got dragged a few meters as it attempted to stop. Once it did, the monster began looking around frantically to see where its prey had disappeared to.

“Yoohoo,” called a voice from above the monster’s head.

It looked up and saw Lakshman, who was standing on the monster’s head, staring down at him. For a moment, the two stared at each other and the silence stretched for a few seconds. As the seconds passed by in silence, Lakshman smiled at the monster and it roared in reply.

Without pausing to think, the monster lifted both of its arms up to try and crush Lakshman in between its fingers. Before its large fists could close around Lakshman, however, he disappeared and reappeared to stand directly in front of the monster with his fist pulled back.

As the monster laid its eyes on him, Lakshman quietly thought, “This is for killing my mother-in-law, several other of my allies and badly wounding my friends!”

He brought his fist forward and unleashed a powerful shockwave straight at the monster’s chest. There was a loud bang as a large hole was blasted through the monster’s chest from the force of impact. The wind also picked up speed and blew wildly towards the monster as it flowed along with the force.

“GRAAAAA!!!”

The monster began to roar loudly in shock from the impact and it grabbed its head with both of its hands. It began to surge with power and released its wild power, causing the wind to blow around them wildly. Lakshman stood his ground firmly and unflinchingly staring at the roaring monster with a serious expression on his face.

At that moment, there was a blinding flash of light that caused everything to become covered in white light. Lakshman instantly reacted and covered his eyes like all the others as the blinding light covered the area in a brilliant glow of white light. A moment later, the light disappeared and allowed everyone to uncover their eyes.

The monster had disappeared and in its place, stood Shenzen with a body far weaker than it originally was before the transformation; bony looking. He remained standing for a moment before collapsing forward and onto the ground without any strength to support him anymore.

The purple substance, which seemed to have exploded and split into tiny pieces, littered the ground and Lakshman eyed them for a moment in silence without showing an expression on his face. The next moment, he raised a finger into the air and gathered energy into it and fired a small glowing ball of energy into the air.

The small ball of energy floated into the air and remained hovering there for a second in silence. Next second, it began to rapid fire small energy blasts towards the purple substance that littered the ground. With each contact against the substance, a small explosion occurred and caused smoke to rise up. The dust cleared and seeing all the purple substance reduced to ashes, Lakshman nodded in satisfaction.

Just then, he noticed something bump into his feet and looking down, he saw a bright red orb. He bent down and picked it up before instantly recognising that it was embedded onto the forehead of the monster. Staring at it for a moment, his eyes widened in shock as he realised what the thing he was holding.

“Berserker Orb!” he exclaimed quietly while staring at the red orb, which glowed slightly in the setting sun. “What’s a forbidden ancient item, like this, doing here?!”

Author's Note

Hello everyone and thank you for reading this reading this battle related chapter. To be honest, I attempted to write a longer chapter, but I realised that it just wasn't in me for this one due to Lucky ending the battle with one punch. I'm sure that those who watch anime picked up the subtle reference I thew in this chapter. Honestly, it was pure conisidence and I not wanting to miss the chance to reference it, I went for it! Haha. Anyway, I hope that you all liked the chapter and will read more as the story continues in next year!

Author's Message

Before the year ends, here's something that I want to get off my chest. Phoenix Rising has been running for a whole year and I completed, with this, 322 chapters! That is an amazing feat without a doubt and in this journey, I faced many great things, both negative and positive. Writing each chapter was a struggle and writing three a day was a great challenge, but I still did it anyway because I love this chapter and all that it had.

Many liked it, but so many others disliked it. but that it their opinion and there's nothing wrong with people having different opinions. The positive attiude from people and their positive comments encouraged me to keep writing more and more when I felt like giving up. The negative comments, no matter how hurtful they felt, helped me to noticed the mistakes I made along the way that I tried to fix, but didn't completely do because of laziness.

I sincerely hoped that the many awesome readers that read this story loved it very much. In the format of a story, I wrote about life and included in all the messages and situations that helped me understand how valuable life is. I suppose that most would not realise this because of how complex the story is, but that is probably just on my part being a maths teacher with a complex mind. Even so, I thank everyone; my fellow readers, followers, commentators and haters! Without you, this story would've ended at chapter 60 and my dream of wanting to see the end of Lakshman's story would've ended in faliure. So, I thank you very much from the depeast part of my heart because I really do appreciate it!

Now, all that's left for me to say is: "Thank you 2015! You've been a wonderful year, but sadly, it's time to move on. So! Goodbye last year and welcome new year!!!"