"That so?" Brody asked with a blank expression, "So you"re tryin" to tell me that you hid parts of your powers? For any specific reason?" The Demon-Orc asked. As if scoffing at that question, the Incarnation of War immediately replied, "Of course. It simply a.s.sumed it to be unnecessary for a fight against you."
"You a.s.sumed, but now you"re suddenly using it, meaning you"re just dead wrong." His tusks nearly stabbed his cheeks as Brody started to grin broadly, "You"ll be fine if I go ahead and use another ability of mine as well, right?"
"Please, use whatever you think you may need." The Incarnation said in a tone that just showed that it was a.s.suming itself to be far superior to Brody at the moment. But the Demon-Orc just continued to grin and cracked his knuckles.
"Gotcha, but don"t come cryin" to me when ya lose." He said bluntly, before the Demon-Orc took a deep breath and then basically lost all physical function. It wasn"t that he dropped down onto the ground unconscious, but he simply... stood there like a statue all of a sudden, with his eyes closed and his torso not showing any signs of him breathing.
And all of a sudden, Brody"s form changed to quite an extent. His gray skin slowly turned many shakes darker, until it was as black as black came, as if he was just made up of ink completely. At the same time, it seemed like his skin slowly started to give off white mist that was slowly wrapping itself around him. His clothes, leather-armor, and the spear that he was holding were slowly dyed a pure white that perfectly opposed his pitch-black form.
"Oh, so you have mastered those unique energies to this extent, I see. Quite surprising." The Incarnation muttered, but it didn"t particularly seem like Brody was completely done yet. He kept standing there for a while. His skin became like a black hole that seemed to suck in any light that came even close to it, while his clothes, armor and weapon became the polar opposite. It was like they were pus.h.i.+ng out such light, as if Brody"s body was in a self-sufficient circle.
And then, out of nowhere, cracks formed on Brody"s skin. Black cracks on his white clothes, armor, and weapon, as well as white cracks on his skin. The moment those cracks stopped forming, pieces shattered apart and were practically flung off of Brody, one after another, until it stopped, leaving behind a certain few pieces over Brody"s skin and items, that were colored either black or white respectively, in the form of a few intricate patterns. The white patterns on the items were sharp, angled, and seemed as if they could cut someone that tried to touch them, while the black patterns on Brody"s skin were intricately interwoven with one another and were practically flowing over his skin.
"Much better..." Brody muttered quietly, and everyone looked at the figure of the Demon-Orc with curiosity. The only ones here that knew about this form Brody took on were the Incarnation of War, which was formerly one of Brody"s items, as well as Eisen, who just recently remembered the fights that he had with Brody over the many, many years they both lived here.
The Incarnation stared back at Brody in shock, "You... How have you mastered that technique already?" It asked, and the martial-artist just looked back at it with a slight grin, "Simple. Been usin" it all along, this is just a step further I"ve been practicin" for a while." Brody explained.
"You know, "Energy" is definitely different from Mana, but that doesn"t mean it is completely different. Much like mana, "Energy" has elements to it as well, although it works slightly differently to mana... Yin is a force of Chaos, and Yang is a force of Order. Chaos inherently affects everything. It makes up everything, and is made up of everything. So, all I have to do is bring a little bit of Order into the Chaos to control it, and with that, everything there is." The Demon-Orc said, "As long as I understand that side of the chaos and how to bring order to it, at least."
In a sort of demonstration, Brody slowly pressed one of his feet tightly into the ground below him while sliding his other one forward. It wasn"t fast, and certainly had not much force to it. It should have only been enough to push a little bit of dust forward, Eisen was sure of that as he was looking at Brody"s legs and the way his foot barely even touched the ground properly.
But what happened instead was that a lot of the actual rock underneath his foot was pushed forward, creating a small hole and a bit of a half-circle around that hole as it was pushed upward and around a slight bit. Brody had controlled the rock around him using his two energies.
The Demon-Orc took another deep breath, and started to speed his breathing up while taking in and pus.h.i.+ng out more and more air every single time that he was doing so. And together with that, his breath took on a quite fierce force as well. The dust around him was pushed forward and backward, as if creating a small cloud on the ground, which Brody just cut in half with his spear the very next moment.
It was as if the air itself had been split apart, and immediately after, it all fell back into place, "A"ight, let"s get this second round started." The Demon-Orc said with a broad grin, while the Incarnation simply stared back, "This may become more of a challenge than I expected." It said, and then properly held its spear forward.
That very moment seemed to have become the new starting-point, as both Brody and the Incarnation simply went for it. They stabbed their spears forward and it seemed like they would make impact with each other at the tips once more, so that they could continue their feat of strength. But to Eisen"s surprise, the moment that the two spears made impact, the Incarnation"s simply fell to dust and appeared in its other hand just to be stabbed forward once more.
It was about to stab right into Brody"s face, before the Demon pushed his head to the side and pressed his palm onto the item made completely of metal while sliding one of his feet over the ground in a circular motion.
The spear was bent to the side and as such didn"t manage to hit Brody, but the Demon-Orc quickly let go of his own spear after hitting the Incarnation"s. After sliding his foot over the ground, his body was now faced right into the direction of that spear, and Brody soon let himself drop backward before the Incarnation"s spear even finished being bent. Brody kicked off of the ground a bit and swung his feet around, placing one of his feet into the inside of the spear"s new curve, while he placed the other one onto the outside of that new curve.
As Brody looked up into the sky, his hands. .h.i.t the ground first. He twisted them around and caused the ground itself to support that twisting and transfer it to his whole body. Like that, Brody managed to bend the Incarnation"s spear into a spiral within a matter of two or three seconds. It was basically unusable as a spear right now.
Brody was practically molding the world around him however he saw fit, even when the Incarnation turned the twisted spear into dust to fix it. Brody managed to quickly jump up and moved his hands around the area with the dust. He controlled the air just like that, and it seemed like the air carried the dust that made the spear up with it.
Brody made it float around his hands and arms and didn"t allow the Incarnation to turn it back into a proper solid form. He moved his hands around before slowly lowering his whole body down toward the ground, and opening multiple holes in the rock that he shoves portions of the dust into before closing the holes back down.
The Demon-Orc then stood up straight again, just looking at the Incarnation with a grin, "Alright, disarmed again." With a grin on his face, Brody pushed his toes into the ground and pulled it back, as if kicking into the ground, but he was basically just trying to pull the ground that his own spear was laying on toward him so that he could swiftly pick it up.
Without even giving the Incarnation much of a chance to react in any way, Brody pushed his spear forward toward the Incarnation, stopping short just a meter or so away from the center of its chest somehow. But just a moment later, the spot that Brody would have hit had he just been a little closer started being pushed back, being dented as if someone was pressing onto it with a high amount of pressure.
Brody pulled his spear back again and stabbed once more. Then again, then again, all in the span of a single moment. More and more, the dent in the center of the Incarnation"s chest was pushed deeper into its body, until a small rip appeared there.
However, even quicker than this "wound" appeared, it also disappeared, simply being repaired by the Incarnation"s ability. That was the only reason why the Incarnation didn"t dodge, because it was aware that it would be unnecessary to do so. Nothing could actually hurt it anyway.
But either way, Brody seemed to have also expected this, and continued to hit the Incarnation in as many different places all over its body as possible. He cut through the actual metal armor with his spear and this ability of his by pus.h.i.+ng the metal out of the way. More and more, it seemed like the Incarnation"s body was being destroyed, but it didn"t really care and just continued to let Brody tire himself out.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but there is little reason to continue this. There is no chance for you to ever beat m-"
"Ah... so that"s how it works." Brody interrupted the Incarnation quite bluntly, although the former armor just stood there and looked at Brody without a proper reaction, and Brody slowly placed his palm onto the Incarnation"s arm. It was letting him do whatever he wanted, basically. It was more than just confident, confidence that would be its downfall, of course.
Because the very next moment, Brody squeezed the metallic arm tightly and crushed it in his fist, before ripping away a chunk of the metal armor. And then, it fell apart into dust in Brody"s hand as the Incarnation seemingly tried to make it rejoin the armor.
But instead, it simply dropped to the ground, not letting the Incarnation control it anymore.