I don’t really know what happened but it happened. A resurgence of the same dark energy that I felt over the last few days had been growing intensely. I’ve been holding on to it for a while but it was only a matter of time when the darkness will start to consume me and probably the rest of the remaining Stardust. That could probably make a bigger hole than what was currently going on between all of us. I kept my distance with everyone as I was being fearful of my dark energy spreading to my friends. I don’t want them to catch on to my problem.

I went on ahead and talk about it with Rulend to which he replied, “I guess there’s no other choice then to distance yourself. As you said, it might be contagious. I don’t want to risk that and neither you. We still need to win this match before we can decide on what to do with your repulsive energy.”

“Should we tell the other about this?” I wondered.

Rulend laid back on his chair and looked at the ceiling and answered, “I don’t want to sound like a jerk but telling them will only cause a bigger rift than what is going on right now. Everyone is stressed out because of recent events and especially when there is no one to lead us properly.”

“Leading, huh? I wonder how is White right now…” I felt ashamed for taking the role of acting leader when I know I wouldn’t do a good job the same way as White could. He’s on a different level compared to me even when he doesn’t talk as much as I do.

“He’s probably in the background trying to find a way to help all of us. I’m sure of that.” Rulend left his chair and patted my shoulder as he makes his way to the exit to take some fresh air.

And now here we are fighting against Team Buddyz and making sure Stardust was all in this together. But it doesn’t look good from the looks of it. Everyone started to move all over the place and it felt kind of convoluted with all of us roaming about the arena without a direction.

“Rulend! I thought you had an idea!” I shouted to him as I look upon half of our team were getting ganged up by Team Buddyz.

Rulend sighed and showed remorse on his face, “I’m sorry, Blax. Today seems to be not our day. I’m out of idea. Especially when all of us are not in this together.”

“Take this!” Rider shouted from a distance.

Rider in his dragon knight armor, plunged into the chaos which was then completely stop when Mordekaizer’s Precise Hook caught onto him. Rider was sent spinning around the arena for a while until he was later pulled in toward Mordekaizer. As Rider was about to reach him, Eren intervene and slashed through Rider with his Aura Sword. Rider’s dragon knight armor slowly fades away as he received the fatal damage from Eren.

Serena finally made her way in and turned her volume to the max level. As she plays a calming song in high volume, Rider was successfully saved by Serena as a defensive sphere started to take form and heals him. Meanwhile, Kaym marches in his devil form and grabbed Shallow by his neck. Kaym then swung Shallow to the ground to which he was later interrupted by Ozzy’s Earth Manipulation ability. A huge boulder just suddenly flew in toward Kaym and sent him to the walls of the arena.

Eren laughed and said, “Is this all you got, Stardust? What happened to the top team during the early part of the group stage?”

Kurokiba then added, “I guess they have gone astray especially when that one guy is not even here. They even had to replace a few people.”

Eren continues to laughs, “I see what’s going on now. They probably had an infighting because of conflicting reasons. We better take this opportunity to eliminate them swiftly.”

“I’m on it.” Herone readies his revolver gun.

Herone aimed his revolver toward Serena. To which Serena successfully dodged it thanks to her speed with her roller skate. But, little did she remembers that Herone’s ability was called Bullet Spirit which makes the bullet moves on its own. With that being said, the bullets that was dodged by Serena does a U-turn and shot her where she least expects it. Serena received 3 bullet wounds thanks to that.

“Serena!” Kin dragged Serena to safety behind a rock. “This isn’t going well…”

Things get even worse when the rock they were hiding behind exploded with the interruptions of Ozzy who blew it up with his earth shattering ability. Kin protected Serena from the explosion but it resulted to her being severely wounded from the explosive rocks that got all over her.

“Ser…ena…” Kin was knocked out of the equation.

“Why you do that…Kin…?” Serena tries to get back on her knees slowly. “These guys are relentless as heck. Kin…stay with me, Kin. Kin!”

Kin didn’t respond. Serena puts her headphones to her head and plays a soothing song to heal her. She manages to heal her a little but Kin didn’t open her eyes at all. She concluded that she’s knocked out and she needs to take a rest from the battle. Serena regretfully grab onto something from her pocket and threw it into the air. It was a white flag signals that both Kin and Serena gave up.

“Where is Hosuke?” I asked Rulend.

“You forgot? He’s inside Shallow Dime’s Dark Dome with Shallow.”

“Darn it…” I stomped the ground in anger. “What now, Rulend?”

“I’ll go in first. In the meantime, try to get behind them and wait for my signal.” suggested Rulend.

While all of that was happening, Hosuke was still trapped inside the Dark Dome that Shallow made. Shallow even brought himself into the dome just to mock him. Hosuke tried to blast him away with his water abilities but Shallow was too quick to defend himself from danger and immediately escapes his Dark Dome the moment he notices it. Each and every time Hosuke tried to attack, he swivels out like a rat and then returned and mocked him.

They continued until Hosuke’s movement became sluggish. This gave an opening for Shallow to attack him from behind by appearing behind him and struck him down with a roundhouse kick.

“Is this all you got, Sea God? For shame. Thank goodness my family destroyed that shrine.” Shallow spouted something he shouldn’t said.

“You what?!” Hosuke was in frenzy mode and stood back up instantly as soon as he had heard the mockery from Shallow.

Shallow then chuckled and said, “Yes. I finally said it to your face. It was my family who took down your precious Sea God Shrine earlier this year!”

“How dare you! Disrespecting The Dragon Sea God? This is unforgivable.” Hosuke charged in toward Shallow.

To which Shallow pretty much jumped away and exited his dome once again as expected. But little did he know that once he tried to take a peek back into his Dark Dome, Hosuke has filled the whole dome with water. Now it feels like everything was underwater and all movements have been slowed down.

“I’ve got you in my sights, infidels! I’ll show you what it means to have a divine intervention!”

Shallow notices that Hosuke was charging up and tried to swim back out of his dome. As he was about to touch the wall however, A watery hand caught onto his leg.

Hosuke, slowly said this words in a menacing way, “You’re not…going…anywhere…”

I don’t really know exactly what happened inside the Dark Dome but later on we heard a loud splash and we noticed that the Dark Dome begins to crack and leaking with water. In a few moments, the dome was entirely destroyed thanks to what Hosuke did. Having said all that however, Hosuke was still mad about the destruction of the shrine.

While that was happening, Rulend was on a handicap match against Ozzy, Mordekaizer and Kurokiba while Eren and the others watched him. Rulend’s intuition was adequately high to the point that he can plan out his next move while executing the current one in real time.

“I could really use some help from you two, you know?” Rulend was talking about Rider and Kaym who haven’t threw the white flag yet.

The rock that crushed Kaym was annihilated by his devil laser. He then stood tall and clenches his muscle in preparation.

“Break’s over, Rider. Call out your wings.” said Kaym as he reveals his own devil wings that sprouted from his back.

“Don’t mind if I do!” replied Rider from afar. He then transformed into his flying gear, Crow’s Robe and flew into the handicap fight together with Kaym.

With a slight of cooperation from the three of them, Rulend stunned all three of his enemy in one place and came in Kaym and Rider who crushed two of them with each other by crashing into them. The third one received a nice back suplex from Rulend. Things are going well for Stardust. But for some reason…I’m starting to feel a little bit hazy…I have to finish this match before it’s too late…

TO BE CONTINUED