With a single move from both parties, the atmosphere of the entire field had become grim and bleak. The verdant flourishes of greenery were no longer visible, replaced with gray steam in every direction and the occasional faded shadow of a towering tree to guide one's path through the abyss. The heat of the steam was prevalent, but not burning.

'This is my chance. It's a perfect smokescreen,' Arik proclaimed.

The tussle of battle ensued a distance within the concealing cloud, lighting up the drab gas with licks of red and orange. Arik reacted by attempting to fly away once again, hopefully this time with less snakes involved. But after flying a dozen feet up, Arik harshly plowed into a long tree branch that snapped against the top of his head. He plummeted back down to the ground in a sore grunt.

There was a pause in the yonder hidden commotion and Arik felt as if he could see the two deathless sprinting towards him with murder in their eyes. Before he could give much more thought, he stood up, turned the opposite way and ran with all his strength, hoping to displace himself from the noise he made and finally escape this hellscape.

In all honesty, he didn't truly expect to make it out of the steam, believing that one of the foes were sure to catch up with him with their insane speed advantage. And just as he had thought, he heard the hoarse chuckle of Gnoll gaining behind him. The thought of that man nipping right behind Arik made his hair stand on end and his legs run with less pain.

Much to Arik's surprise, his body ripped through the veil of steam that had encompassed his eyes moments before. He had made it. But before he could feel out of the woods just yet, he twisted around and held out his golden shield. Gnoll came bolting out of the steam right behind him at least six feet in the air, feet first like a missile with Arik's name on it.

Gnoll crashed into Arik's shield and sprung straight with an aerial dropkick. The force sent the two flying in opposite directions, but for very different reasons. Arik crashed onto his back, his ribs screaming and threatening to break further. Gnoll landed gracefully on his feet after a neat flip and began approaching Arik with an expression of triumph and insanity.

Arik stood back up with a grunt of pain.

"You really don't give up do you? That's a commendable trait. I think you would be right at home in the Deft Eye Syndicate." He brandished a black blade of shadow and tilted his head.

"I'll do whatever it takes to live the life I've been given a second chance at. Including standing up to superpowered, insane hyena men." Arik spit blood in the enemy's direction.

Gnoll's smile vanished.

"The DES will give you a purpose befitting that of a deathless. You should be honored. Now concede before I spill your blood."

Arik shook his head in refusal.

"Sorry, but it looks like you're going to have to spill it." The audacity of his words filled him with a rush that he couldn't help but feel was reckless. But he stood by them wholeheartedly.

"Poor choice."

Gnoll bared his jagged teeth and charged once again with his victory dangled blatantly in front of him. He took but two steps before the settling steam behind him expelled out in a dome-shaped whirlwind of rushing, tinted red energy. Gnoll froze and turned on the defensive.

"Enough of this!" Bellanode's authoritative voice screamed from the center of the vortex.

Arik almost collapsed as he gawked at the presentation of frightening power currently ripping the enormous steam cloud asunder. Bellanode strutted forward toward the two with immense energy exploding out from her in every direction that held up her long black hair like she was dropping from the sky. After a few seconds, the red energy absorbed back into her body, leaving her with a red fiery glow outlining her body. But perhaps the most gut-wrenching part was her eyes, completely red and spewing periodic flames to the sides like some embodiment of rage. The turbulent energy was now gone, but her intimidation was almost tangible.

"If you two won't cooperate, then make yourselves useful and turn to dust." She held a hand out to her side and tendrils of flame materialized around her body that snaked through the air and began to funnel together into her palm. As the ribbons of flame twirled together tighter and tighter, they formed a small orb that resembled a small sun.

At this point in the fight, Bellanode could have pulled out a crayon and Arik would have foreseen death. So a swirly fire attack of doom was sure to spell out just that. Arik didn't see anything he could do and his mind began to enter overdrive as he tried to come to terms with death.

'It's not over. I'll still come back,' he assured himself as the fire grew bigger and brighter in her palm. 'I hope it will be fast.'

"Listen, Bellanode," Gnoll spoke up as his swords vanished. "We do—"

"Silence!" Bellanode batted her hand at the two and the mass of fire launched forth like burning artillery fire. The blast warped through the air with volatile speed that was aiming right for Gnoll.

With but a fraction of a second to spare, Gnoll managed to move out of the way and dodge the attack, his fur curling shades of black and red from the proximity of the mass. The maneuver put it on a direct collision course with Arik's pathetic frame, his knees threatening to buckle.

Just as Gnoll moved with a purpose right as he needed to, an otherworldly energy invigorated Arik to do that same. It was an energy and accompanying emotion that felt familiar to him, and yet, he couldn't quite place it. But in that moment, Arik managed to shed a shell of dread and face the obstacle head on with true courage in his heart. Arik screamed, squared his stance, and leaned into his shield to attempt to block the blast. He knew deep down that it wouldn't work, but that wasn't the point. He simply refused to go out without every ounce of fight he had left.

As the blast collided with his shield, time seemed to slow to a crawl. The super-heated and concentrated energy began to melt through the surface of the shield and cracks began to spread like shattered glass. Almost instantly, Arik could feel that this was more of an unstoppable object than he was an unmovable one.

The bright glow of the blast deepened to an intemperate orange as Arik pulled his shield to an angle. The ball of fiery energy slid to the side and out of the crater that it was hastily melting into the shield. But before it's force could be fully directed off of the shield, the orb expanded and exploded into a destructive cloud of coiling fire that shattered Arik's shield and sent him flying back as if hit by a truck.

Arik laid on the ground, his body screaming and his ears picking up nothing but a sickening ringing. Rolling to his side he saw his arm, the arm that was once holding his shield, now coated in blood and pointing the wrong direction like some comical prop dummy. He grabbed at the arm and attempted to set it back in place, but pain twisted up his arm like a tornado of razor blades. Arik screamed in pain but could barely even hear it.

Bellanode storming closer in the distance caught Arik's attention. Her lips moved as she spoke words that were filled with silence in Arik's tinnitus stricken ears. The distraction of his pain subsided and his fear began festering again at the demonic woman. He had to hurry before she drew too close.

He looked to the battlefield he was just blown from and realized that the expanded inferno devoured the entire right side of Arik's previous position, incinerating grass, trees and even Gnoll who was blackened and lying on an equally black and smokey ground. Arik couldn't see a single green thing in that direction. But he could see that Bellanode was walking straight for him since the other target was currently down for the count.

A face of regret and malcontent appeared on Arik's face.

'I know what I have to do, but this is going to suck sooo much.' "But there's no time to bitch," Arik finished enthusiastically out loud to psych himself up.

Arik grabbed his arm a second time and set it straight, the pain making the world around him shake violently. Then he closed his teary eyes and focused on his past training with Cyanide. Within a few seconds, his Desired Armor materialized over his broken arm and held it in place like a cast. He moved his arm around a tad. It was still pretty painful, but he could hold his arm out safely and slightly wiggle his fingers.

'That will have to be good enough,' he told himself as he began standing up.

And he stood up, a mild burning sensation became apparent in his leg. Inspecting it real quick, his clothes appeared fine.

'Hm, not really any burns from that blast. The force must have damaged a muscle or fractured a bone in my leg or something.'

A faint voice began bouncing around in Arik's ears. He looked up and saw Bellanode right in front of him, faster than he had anticipated. He defensively began shambling backwards and thinking of a new plan, one that didn't involve him tanking a nuke this time.

'I might be able to buy time if I—'

Bellanode charged forward and grabbed Arik by the collar of his shirt before throwing him to the ground. Arik was barely strong enough to stand let alone react to her or fight back. Although he did notice that her charge was far below the speed she had displayed before.

Bellanode threw her arm to the side and activated her sword echo once again. But this time was different. A straight sword didn't come out of her palm nor did a scythe blade come out of her forearm. But one gigantic blade that would only be wielded by a fantasy character erupted from her entire outer arm, from shoulder to pinky. It was as if her entire arm had become one giant sword. She drove the tip to Arik's neck and screamed at him to speak.

"Where is Cyanide?!"

Arik choked out words through dehydrated vocal cords. "I don't know. He was covering me while I fled."

"Bullshit." She raised the comically sized sword above her head and locked her eyes on one of Arik's legs.

"No! Hey, listen!" Arik begged with a burst of energy.

"Bellanode, leave the boy alone," demanded a stern yet familiar voice a couple dozen feet away.

She turned around in surprise, sword still in the air.

"Ah, you finally came to join us. You know, I was starting to get worried, Cyanide."