This is a story that goes back to a time when the fruits of chaos are still being formed, the cruel fates yet to be revealed.
In another volume of his journey through the Underworld, the "Adam's Heir" will fight memorable battles and meet people who might have the answers he is looking for.
Origins, convictions, and duties. Everything will be put to the test once more.
Hitoshi reincarnated right in front of Lied as he left the latter stranded in emotional limbo. The Adam's Heir activated his Spirit Mode and immediately questioned Pantera about Martyr's whereabouts, a challenge disguised as a question to the hunter, who, until then, had been a mere spectator.
"Yeah, well, you'll have to earn that information" the smiling Pantera said and crossed his arms "I'll give you ten minutes to recharge your batteries. You can still run away, but I see you're determined to face me once more" the aztec smiled even wider with contempt.
Mare was about to beckon Lied to come back to them when Susumu put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head, as if he was telling the aztec to respect the prince's will, which was to settle accounts with the hunter. The girl looked at the detective and then fixed her gaze on Lied. The young man edged away from them and toward his opponent until the two fighters were 30 meters apart.
"I heard that you carry the Adam's Apple within you. Is it true?" the self-serving hunter, having learned of this from the conversation between Zaccharias and Ajax, asked.
"And what if it is?" Lied responded to his question coldly.
"Legend has it that the apple is capable of granting any wish. I assume therefore that it can revive me…" Pantera speculated on his chances of coming back to life as he placed his hand on his chin.
"…I won't let ANYONE take it!" the teenager gritted his teeth and exclaimed.
Silence reigned there as they had nothing else to say. Pantera began doing light exercises, while Lied remained standing for 10 minutes without deactivating the Spirit Mode even once.
Time flew by, the tension coming off the youth was palpable. The hunter activated his Spirit Mode and summoned his spiritual spear. The human did the same, wielding the Anima Sancta in his right hand.
"Entertain me" the aztec said.
The Lost Prince took the initiative and dashed toward Pantera. Lied made his first attempt to cut him with his sword, a movement that the hunter anticipated by using the Sensitivity property and then dodged it with Visibility.
The young man launched another attack as he threw a side kick at the foe's midsection. Pantera blocked it by using his spear as a shield, and the boy unleashed a series of rapid attacks with his sword like a steamroller. Whereas in the past the aztec would have simply sidestepped his blows, now he was forced to use his own weapon to parry his opponent's attacks.
"Not bad. Your movements are still a little stiff, but you've improved since the last time we fought" Pantera jumped back and praised him with the satisfied look of a man who knows he's going to have a fun time, prior to taking the offensive "It's my turn" the male said and stepped forward faster than ever as he closed the distance on him.
Pantera skillfully wielded his spear and sought to puncture the teenager's chest with a piercing blow. Lied impulsively made the Anima Sancta disappear and stopped the attack bare-handed by clutching the weapon's shaft, which surprised the hunter. Pantera grinned and delivered a powerful kick to his stomach as he sent the Adam's Heir flying.
The man didn't want to let him breathe and, spear in hand, continued his attacks on the youth. Lied consistently parried Pantera's blows as he proved he could effectively keep up with his pace, which wasn't the case last time.
"Impressive. Unlike the Mad Snake, you're truly talented!" the male said as he was feeling elated by the fact that he had far exceeded his expectations.
"Don't talk about Hito!" the human shouted and threw a straight right hand, promptly caught like a softball by Pantera nevertheless.
The fighters kept exchanging blows as the duel reached new levels of intensity. Lied used his Sensitivity to foresee another attack with the spear from Pantera, but the hunter's mirage that represented his future suddenly vanished, and instead of the piercing blow to the chest that the lad saw, he was hit by two thrusts, one in each arm, thus left temporarily incapacitated. Lied was deemed inferior in the use of the properties, and his chances of winning were almost impossible.
"First it was Jirou, then that weirdo, and now even Blasius has been defeated…" Pantera said and shrugged his shoulders "Sinners? I'd say we from the Block Minus Five look more like a losers club" he sighed and looked at his opponent with a bored face.
Lied left the man to his monologue and lunged at him once again. The Lost Prince threw a punch, and Pantera made his weapon disappear moments before responding with an even sharper thrust that connected with the lad's closed fist. Their fists collided with one another as a contest of strength kicked off. Lied gasped. He realized that he was going to lose this one and slid his right foot two centimeters away in comparison with the standard Unda. The aztec realized what he was doing on the spot and took three steps back. The prince channeled the teotl and shaped it as always, then he finally aimed the Unda at his abdomen.
"Plunging… something or other, right?" Pantera asked a rhetorical question.
Lied's mouth fell open in a gape of astonishment, and he hesitated before firing the plunging breaker, but ended up doing it anyway. The hunter, however, was expecting that; Pantera dodged his technique with ease as he showed off his footwork and bounced around the battlefield faster than the eye could see.
The youngster pressured him with another variation of the Unda, this time the 1-Kai, but Pantera anticipated it again, subsequently evading the blow by taking two steps back.
Susumu and Mare watched the battle expectantly. The teen, who was the only one of the two capable of keeping up with them, frowned as he feared the worst.
"This isn't good. He knows which Unda Lied will fire" Susumu pointed out that his companion's tactics weren't working "But how? Is it his Sensitivity?" he crossed his arms and said, somewhat confused himself.
The prisoner seized the moment in the fight and resummoned his spear as he sped up his attack cadence, deceiving the Adam's Heir with feints. Pantera approached Lied and struck him multiple times in quick succession and effectively. The prince invoked the Anima Sancta and latched on to it. Lied was starting to get anxious.
"My weapons don't work. If things continue like this, Hito's death will have been in vain. No… I can't stop here. I have to chase them down… and make them pay" the boy thought as the faces of the members of the Talking Serpent Cult that he saw in Hitoshi's memories came to his mind.
Lied became crestfallen and disconnected from reality out of the blue. Pantera, Susumu and Mare stared at him as they noticed he wasn't his usual self.
The Adam's Heir remembered Zaccharias' words:
"You see, holding a grudge doesn't necessarily hold you back. Take Nachash, for example—his resentment for Adam only fueled his ambition."
Lied's heart pounded. If hatred was a type of weapon, then perhaps it was this very same feeling that he needed to rebuild himself and find the winning formula. All he had to do was listen to the inner voice that screamed desperately for him—his wild instinct.
The boy was consumed by his fervent bloodlust as he entered a trance state; the lad raised his head and the pupil in his white eyes turned fiendish, his gaze eerie, a phenomenon that happened to him not too long, when they faced Cihua.
"I will… DEVOUR YOU" Lied said.
"Hey, your Martyr said something like that—"
Pantera was interrupted by an almost invisible blow that sent him flying to the far wall. For a second, Lied moved faster than the eye could perceive. The hunter, who was unable to foresee that phantom attack, managed to avoid hitting the wall by placing the butt of the spear into the floor, as if he was pole vaulting. The wide-eyed aztec had no clue what happened. Pantera was still processing the last strike when Lied popped up in the blink of an eye beside the man and kicked him away. The tables were turning for the kid.
"His movements are completely different from before!" Pantera composed himself and thought, his mouth agape, moving his eyes from side to side repeatedly as he tried to predict his rival's next moves.
The Lost Prince was gone again, but the man was more attentive this time as Lied's movements were all scrutinized—he seemed to be moving like a snake, curving its body into a series of S-shaped waves and reducing him to a nonplus with those zig zags. Despite all his experience, not even the aztec knew how to deal with this unexpected variable. Notwithstanding the sudden transformation, the prince was still in possession of his faculties and used the serpentine motion together with the variations of the Unda, now far more unpredictable and effective. He had, in practice, acquired a new weapon.
"He's giving off an unbelievable bloodlust. Is that really Lied?" Susumu said, stunned by the recent developments.
"This is…!" Zosimus said as he had witnessed that phenomenon in the past.
Mare was worried about him, and she clasped her hands together as if praying for the human.
Back to the fight, the teen's ridiculous movements relentlessly blindsided Pantera and there was no stopping him. It was an extravagant stance that defied common sense and kept the spiritual properties in check on that account, or, at the very least, retarded his attempt to adapt to his adversary. And even though his normal blows were lacking power, they started doing damage to him as Lied racked up hits. Indeed, that was the ever-evolving 'snake dance', a combination of rectilinear locomotion and horizontal undulations.
"He's changing his fighting style now? In the middle of the fight?" Pantera thought, still incredulous.
Lied felt good, but not overly confident. The teenager had only one goal: to defeat the enemy in front of him with maximum focus and without being arrogant. It was difficult to gauge how conscious he was in that semi-trance state, and especially for how long he could maintain it before experiencing severe fatigue.
Lied weaved past the enemy and struck the man with a 2-Kai Unda that damaged him.
"The Spirit Mode is the same, so where does this agility come from?" Pantera examined Lied from head to toe, confirming that there was nothing different about him, and thought.
The Adam's Heir summoned the Anima Sancta, and the sword clashed violently with the spear. The hunter noticed that Lied's pupils were vertically slit.
"Wait. Could it be his genes?" Pantera thought as he engaged in a new contest of strength, looking absolutely dumbfounded.
The aztec distanced himself from him. His intuition was telling him that there was a great secret about the human right under his nose, related to the mind-body connection. Whatever the truth was, it was pretty obvious at this point that Lied wasn't a normal person in every sense of the word.
"…Haha, Mictlan is a veritable circus of horrors. Honestly though, where did I end up?" the hunter grinned like a Cheshire cat and pointed his spear at his prey "Okay, the show must go on, right? Very well… I will hunt you down!" Pantera exclaimed.
[END OF CHAPTER]