Chapter 26: Karn Vs Devil's— Part One
Karn came down out of the sky at full speed.
"Brazilian kick," Zangika said.
His leading leg swung wide and came down like an axe — the full arc of the descent loaded into the heel, aimed at the back of Delta's head. Delta caught the motion and got her hands up. The block held for a fraction of a second and then the force drove through it and her face went into the dirt.
Karn landed. Above him, Luchion's black beam came down at the spot Cersy had been.
"Laser — intercept."
The Galactic Laser fired upward and met the beam mid-descent. The collision held — two forces pushing against each other, energy dispersing outward in waves that rattled the village walls and blew dust in every direction.
"We can't hold this much longer," Zangika said. "He has the angle."
Karn grabbed Cersy with one arm and moved backward, pulling them both clear as the beam hit the ground and cratered it. Dust rolled outward. Through it, Leon was on his feet again.
"You — you're the one who broke my weapon," Leon said. "You bastard."
"Calm down," Karn said.
Leon threw a punch. Karn tossed Cersy sideways into the air — she made a sound of total confusion — spun, and drove a diagonal kick into Leon's chest as he followed through. As Leon staggered back, Karn caught Cersy on the way down and skidded to a stop.
Luchion descended, Lucia in his arms, and landed beside Delta — who had already pushed herself back to her feet, dirt on her mask. Leon straightened up. The three of them waited.
"Well," Delta said, the smile returning. "Look who showed up."
The dust settled. Cersy looked up at whoever was holding her.
Then she felt where one of his hands had landed in the catch.
"Nexus," she said carefully. "What are you doing here."
"I was—" Karn started, then waited for Zangika to say something.
Zangika said nothing.
"Why did you stop mid-sentence?"
Cersy looked down at his hand. Her face went red.it was on her chest
"Nexus."
"Tell her you were needed here," Zangika said, finally.
"I was needed here," Karn said, relocating his hand.
"You were needed here with your hand at my chest —"
"I didn't mean to. I was catching you."
"Why didn't you redirect your hand?" Cersy said, getting angrier as the adrenaline settled.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Karn muttered to Zangika.
"You told me last time that if I'm going to let you be called a pervert, you would rather actually do the crime first," Zangika said pleasantly.
"I didn't mean it like that."
"If I wasn't injured right now," Cersy said, "I would kill you."
Across the village, Delta tilted her head.
"I didn't know you were so daring, Nexus." She sounded genuinely entertained. "Like when you told me you wouldn't mind me stepping on your face."
"I never said that."
Cersy looked at him.
"I said it's not like I'm not into feet," Karn said. "That's different."
"Stop talking," Zangika said.
"Luchion." Cersy turned toward the group, ignoring all of it with visible effort. "Why did you come back here? You ran from the prince and from Nexus. Why come back now?"
"We didn't run," Luchion said. "The prince was injured and our priority was the extraction. We disengaged."
Cersy looked at Karn. Something was moving behind her eyes — pieces connecting.
"These are the devils from the dungeon," she said slowly. "The ones Edward fought. And you were there."
Karn said nothing.
"King Ragnarok's account didn't mention you," she said. "The duke's report didn't mention you. But the report said the prince fought all four of them. And the prince was injured. And you — the report says he ran. Did the two of you fight all four of them together and still not win?"
"We all held back," Karn said. "All of us. Them and us. For our own reasons."
"He's right," Delta said. "We weren't full output, Luchion."
"Neither were you," Luchion replied.
"She's reassessing you," Zangika said quietly. "Her behaviour just shifted."
Cersy was quiet for a moment. Then she said, almost to herself:
"No, it's probably just the prince. This pervert is just... fast. And somewhat strong."
"She thinks you're a pervert again."
"I know. I was there for that conclusion."
Karn pulled a large sweater from the void space and held it out to Cersy.
"Cover up."
"I thought you preferred—"
"Oh my god."
"Fine. Thank you." She took it.
"Are you both done?" Luchion said. "Because I am going to kill you now."
"Hold on," Karn said. "A lady is changing. Have some manners."
"He's right," Delta said. "Let her finish."
Luchion stared at Delta for a long moment. "Fine."
"Done," Cersy said.
* * *
Round TwoBoth fights started at the same time.
Cersy and Delta found their own space in the village while Karn moved toward Luchion. One hand wrapped in torn cloth over the bruising, Cersy kept her injured side protected and worked her wind around Delta's speed — trading range for safety, pushing her back whenever Delta closed in, buying seconds with deflection and positioning.
Delta's tail swipe came in low. Cersy blocked it — took the tail across both forearms and slid back two steps. Delta spun immediately and drove a heel into her stomach. Cersy rode the impact with wind rather than absorbing it straight, twisting the force sideways, losing less than she should have. Then her Wind Palm hit Delta square in the gut — the compressed air discharge at contact point — and a section of Delta's scale armour cracked off.
Delta shot aura claws — three lines of concentrated force extending from her fingertips. They caught Cersy's sweater across the midsection and tore through it.
"Not again," Cersy said, with the exhausted fury of someone who has now lost two outfits to the same person.
She called a tornado — a full rotation, wide, the wind pulling at everything around them. Delta jumped clear of the outer edge, reading the rotation and stepping out of its range. Cersy redirected the spin at an angle and chased Delta's landing point with the trailing edge.
Delta dodged that too. They were moving fast now — trading position rather than landing, both of them reading the other's rhythm.
On the other side of the village, Karn and Luchion were harder to look at directly. The speed of their exchange had compressed past the point where individual moves were visible — two lines of energy, one black, one the faint blue of the suit's systems, clashing and separating and clashing again. Even Delta and Cersy had reduced their own fight to glances, both of them tracking the other two in their peripheral vision.
Luchion fired the black beam. Karn countered with the laser and they clashed mid-air, the energy exchange cracking stone on both sides. Leon came in from behind. Karn snapped his fingers.
Luchion had felt it in the dungeon — the faint mana signature Karn carried. He shouted the warning.
Leon saw it too late. The Fire Blast detonated at contact — not a wide explosion but a concentrated charge, all the compressed force releasing into the point of impact. Leon's emergency armour — something inside his body, a last-resort reinforcement that activated when everything else failed — deployed and shattered simultaneously. The mark it left across his chest was black and deep. He went down.
"What was that?" Cersy said, forgetting Delta for a second.
"I didn't even sense where it came from," Delta said. She sounded like she meant it as a compliment.
"Raw power," Luchion said quietly, staring at Leon on the ground. "Leon."
He knelt beside him. Leon's chest was still moving. Luchion pressed two fingers to the black mark, feeling the damage, and his expression did not change but something in his posture shifted — the way a person shifts when they are containing something they do not want to show.
"When you wake up," Luchion said, low enough that it was nearly private, "we'll eat this one's organs together."
"That's a very specific kind of friendship," Karn said.
The energy that released from Luchion's body when he stood was a different kind from what had come before — not directed, not shaped, just present. A wave of pressure that moved outward from him in all directions. He appeared behind Karn before the wave had fully dissipated and hit him open-palmed.
The force field took most of it. Most. Karn's body still registered the impact as something unpleasant happening to his internal structure and he was moving before he had decided to move, the suit compensating for the trajectory and converting the force into distance rather than damage.
"He powered up," Zangika said. "This is different from before."
"I noticed."
"New moves. Now."
End of Part One