Blind System

Losing an epiphany

"Will you continue being a coward and stay hidden or will you come out and face me like a man!" Searching around frantically, Ichikawa waves his fans over the place.

"It's not being a coward, it's being a tactician!" Aion voice rings out again this time even more dominating and pressuring.

Suddenly hands pop out from Ichikawa's shadow, grabbing at his legs. With expertly instinct Ichikawa jumps up evading the hands.

Immediately he lands on the floor again another set of hands come out of his shadow, and he keeps evading jumping out of the way but once his legs hits the ground again the hands will then pop out of his shadow.

Ichikawa did a backflip and leaps up to the air. "You bastard show yourself!".

Waving both his fans downwards a gale blows out from his fan spreading out to the rock blowing up dust and also dissipating it. His eyes looks around for any change or signs but nothing.

Silently appearing behind Ichikawa, Aion holds his scythe a wide crazy smile plastered on his lips, with his eyes closed.

Ichikawa notices something and turns his head back, but there is nothing behind him. He frowns in confusion as he faces the front again then he lands.

Raising one hand to his face and the other to his side, he began a set of footwork dancing and twirling methodically, he finishes the dance and slams both his fan on the rock.

"[Wind of the west] hyaaa!" The fan blows up a wind that gathers into numerous spikes shooting out from Ichikawa at the centre.

One of those spike grazes Aion shadow tearing up a hole, he was a out to close it but he decides against it and was about to step out but he notices something strange happening.

Wind was blowing into the shadow space and was rapidly ballooning it up, and soon enough everyone could see the black that was slowly expanding. It expanded rapidly and within seconds it grows very big.

Aion realizes the swelling of the shadow was getting out of hand, it has gotten big enough to form a temporary cloud over them and everyone both on the rock and down below were enshrouded in darkness.

Aion draws in the shadow that had created a dome over them but he is unable to pull it in. He looks down below at his feet and sees his shadow is absent.

'shit! No light no shadow, I can't pull it in, at this rate it might blow up and detach from me, I'll lose control of this part of my shadow essence for no reason.' Aion thinks as he looks up at the shadow that was now looking thin, and not as dark as before. Now it looked like a shadow that had faded from an extremely bright light...

... It was about to burst.

'No! I can't allow that!' Aion expression hardens and he ignores the win slash that Ichikawa was sending at him.

Opening his eyes, the white of it starts to transform and before long it became the black and red. His ears pointing out, and his fangs protruding. His height stretches a bit and his muscles tighten while also becoming more robust and firm.

"Aawooo!..." He howls out to the shadow and sucks it in. The shadow essence all draws in into him but it didn't go to his dantian, as his shadow essence could only go in through his shadow and since his shadow was inactive there was no other way for his shadow essence to get into his dantian.

So rather than store it into his dantian, Aion decides to store it into his bones and muscles, his blood cells, everything inside his very being was used to store his shadow essence.

What he didn't know was that the shadow he was infusing into his bone and every fiber of his being was actually a way of cultivating.

A pop up window appears before him and it also immediately disappears, he would have been able to see it but he was overly focused on absorbing the shadow essence he couldn't see a thing, because if he did he would have known the process of what he was doing.

[Ding!

Cultivation technique learning progress: 7%...

Name: Ancient darkness manuel.

Inventor: Thanatos.]

As Aion absorbs all the shadow into himself and restores light hack into the area, Ichikawa had already used that to get close to him, not also counting the amount of wind slashes he got from the fan.

Ichikawa felt annoyed that his opponent had the guys to be experimenting his abilities while fighting him, and not just only that he even dared to fail and lost complete interest in him. It was insulting to his pride and prowess.

So he made a dangerous move not caring if it could potentially kill Aion or leave him critically injured.

So with that determination in mind Ichikawa didn't hesitate before he crossed his hands and slashed downwards with all the frustration and anger he accumulated because of Aion.

He was ecstatic because he saw his fan connect with Aion's chest and was slowly during an 'x', but as the 'x' got halfway he felt like it was too easy to get such a hit in, especially how Aion showed himself to be extremely slippery and fast, so him getting an easy hit in like this was almost too wrong.

With his slash still drawing an 'x', he looks up and that was when he saw it. White eyes with red and black rims, and fangs that looked like they could pierce through stars, but most especially the apathetic face that held them all. His face was utterly indifferent and emotionless.

As Ichikawa's strike completely drew it's 'x' over Aion's chest, he himself was sent flying away. A sound like thunder following immediately after.

He crashes and tumbles along the throw and is unable to stop the speed he is going at no matter what he tries. Skidding and bouncing off the solid rock with the dangerous speed he was going at caused a few of his bones to fracture and crack, and everywhere over his body was sore.

No one understood what had thrown him away, when it was obvious he was the one to get the strike in, but feel were able to see a fast blue and with that, made their guesses.

As they had guessed, so it was. At that moment when Aion successfully absorbed all the shadow essence into his body which he thought and felt was wrong, but had no other option if he didn't want to lose such a massive amount of energy essence. So when the shadow was infused into his body and merged with every fibre of his being, he couldn't understand why he felt like he was getting complete, and at that moment he had a sudden but slight epiphany.

He was busy trying to understand what he realized before it leaves his mind but that was when Ichikawa had slashed at him making him forget, and out of anger he punched blankly and straight at his collarbone, shattering it on impact and a few of his ribs as well.

Ichikawa laid squirming on the ground, his mouth opened wide but no voice could be heard even though he is desperately yelling in pain and calling for help. Only spit continues to drop out of his mouth if he yells.

He holds his collapsed chest while rolling pitifully trying with all his might to breathe but the pain from the hit and the one all over his body seems to have made him forget how to breathe, and it could also be that the punch had in one way or the other affected his lungs.

Aion was about to walk up to Ichikawa when suddenly he is forced out of his transformation, his eyes returns back to their pure white and the shadow he held inside tears itself out of his body but it was now a regular shadow essence.

He falls to his knees in exhaustion, holding the shadow in was taxing but because he was in his transformation state, he couldn't feel it but when his endurance was breached and he exited his state, everything hit him like a sledgehammer.

He was tired and exhausted beyond measure, he was not just exhausted to the bones like some would say, rather he was exhausted to the cells.

Sweat covers him in an instant and he is soaked with both sweat and blood. He clenches his teeth and stands up walking towards Ichikawa while raising his scythe.

Ichikawa's pupils were dilated so much it was like a dot dancing around wildly in his sclera. His fear and panic were evident in his pupils that were trained on the high raised scythe.

"Keugh... Kah... Heuh..." He tries to speak out but every sound leaving his lips were not just inaudible but also incomprehensible.

Aion turns his head to the side as he twists the scythe, after twisting it enough he beings it down.

...