While still mulling over the fact that he was in his birthday suit, a faint shimmer flickered at the edge of his vision, like a ripple.
At first, it was barely noticeable, a subtle distortion in the air, but as he turned his head, the glow pulsed slowly and beautifully, it felt almost... alive. It wasn't ordinary light; it felt almost sentient, but then again they were in a fight, nothing was supposed to be normal.
Kallen rose smoothly, but the moment he put weight on his leg, a sharp jolt of pain lanced up his bones. His body, conditioned beyond normal human limits, instinctively compensated, keeping his stride steady even as his muscles screamed in protest.
He moved past the wreckage, eyes narrowing. Behind an inclined slab of stone, leaning against a still-standing portion of the wall, two figures were embraced to the shadows.
The first assassin; the one wielding those treacherous twin daggers, was crouched over the archer, his hands glowing with a dull green light, pressed firmly against his immobilized comrade's abdomen. A gruesome hole; straight through archer's stomach and out his back, oozed thick rivulets of blood onto the floor. Nearby, a bent metal rod, slick with fresh crimson, told the story of what must have happened to him.
Yet, that wound was closing.... fast. The torn flesh knitted itself together at a speed visible to the naked eye, veins and sinew reforming under the soft radiance of the assassin's touch.
Kallen didn't hesitate. He lunged for the kill immediately. His body moved like a blur, a well-tuned machine of death, with his eyes trained on their every little movement.
Their reaction was sluggish and dulled, yet precisely calculated, it was as if their bodies were spent but their minds were unfazed. He knew why. Healing required dynamis. To mend something as severe as a severed Achilles tendon, and now nearly restore the archer's gutted torso, meant the assassin's reserves had to be running dangerously low. This lethargy and obvious, slight sluggishness, were signs of dynamis exhaustion. It should be a clean kill.
But something was wrong.
His movements though, still carried on true. At the last second, he twisted his body, angling his limbs at an unnatural angle, just enough to slip his kunai past their defenses without putting himself in any unexpected danger.
Only two swift, brutal strikes! One blade found the assassin's throat. The other, the archer's skull, and they dropped dead.
Too easily. Too clean. It was too perfect.
Kallen frowned deeply. Signals were firing through his every nerves. Something was howling at him—wrong, wrong, wrong!
At that moment, a suffocating feeling of danger crashed over him! It was unlike anything before. He had never felt it with this much certainty in his life... two lives even.
High above the clouds, the heavens trembled. The battlefield in the sky was a domain reserved for Saints alone, monsters beyond comprehension.
If anyone were unfortunate enough to witness this battle firsthand, it would mean certain doom. Their flesh would be torn apart by the raw forces at play, their minds shattered by the mere sight of the incomprehensible. Even if they survived, they would be reduced to mindless husks, their very souls crushed beneath the weight of power far beyond their feeble existence.
This was not a fight of warriors... It was a war of calamities!
The Crimsons had four Saints present near their stronghold; Ariel and Azarel, their cousin Selene—Alita's mother, and Sixtus who was an uncle to the three; one of the first Ancestor's children, and the founder of the morph branch. Their opponents? Twelve Saints.
The sky above was full of saintly chaos, a shifting canvas of apocalyptic forces, distorting the atmosphere with every clash! Shockwaves carved apart the heavens, thunderous detonations rumbled like the wrath of nature, and space itself fractured beneath the sheer magnitude of their power.
Sixtus stood alone, his rapier gleaming like a needle weaving the requiem of death.
Four Saints surrounded him, yet his expression remained placid, untouched by the chaos around him. His long crimson hair, tied elegantly into a ponytail, flowed like silk, untouched by the turbulence of battle.
His face was a masterpiece of serene lethality, his eyes burning with a cold, absolute promise of Death, and the unmatched pride of a peacock.
His rapier cut through the air in fluid arcs, and the world seemed to harmonize with each stroke. The battlefield itself bent to his rhythm, the scent of burning ozone and sulfur lingering in his wake. His opponents were pressed onto their backfoot, barely holding on. Each swing was made with a relaxed pose, and each thrust sang a melody of carnage.
On a different side of the battlefield, Selene stood; holding down three Saints on her own, their expressions twisted with barely-contained dread.
She had a nickname; The Blood Witch, and for a very valid reason.
Her side of the battlefield was an ocean of blood that was her's to command. An ocean of blood from which blades, spears, whips, and fangs of blood materialized at her will, surging like they had lives of their own. Her enemies could only defend, slipping in an occasional lethal counter.
She had the characteristic crimson hair and eyes, that glowed with an eerie luster, her full blood-red lips set in a cold, emotionless line. She was a beauty truly, yet she exuded the presence of a butcher!
The remaining Saints were locked in battle with Azarel and Ariel.
Azarel wielded a staff, his presence steeped in a miasma of pestilence! The very air around him shimmered with a sickly dull crimson hue, warping with unseen plagues. His movements were slow yet deliberate, each strike a sending forth runes of decay!
Beside him, Ariel wielded a longsword, a force of absolute suppression! Where he moved, the world seemed to buckle under his authority, as if every ounce of dynamis in the surroundings feared his presence.
Yet, despite their might, they were slightly on the defensive.
"Hohoho! Why does the Reverend Saint of Plagues look like a walking corpse?!" one of the assailants bellowed in laughter, his colossal fist clashing against Azarel's staff! He danced back, smoothly evading Ariel's blade with effortless grace.
Azarel only chuckled, his classic smile still playful yet his eyes colder than frigid ice itself.
"Ahh, this old man has lived a long life, you know," he quipped, twirling his staff in a lazy arc.
"Kekeke! You really should just die! A 200-year-old child calling himself an old man? Kekeke! How much more disrespectful can you be? Kekeke!" Another opponent cackled, his eerie laughter drifting across the battlefield like black dust scattering in the wind.
Azarel and Ariel said nothing. Because they had no chance to. Because the pressure suddenly spiked.
The dynamics of the other parts of the battlefield also changed, the atmosphere growing increasingly oppressive.
And every relaxed demeanors vanished.