Ren managed to interpose his right shoulder, absorbing part of the kick’s impact.
But the power behind the blow was monstrous. His shoulder got crushed and gave way instantly, and the enormous force, still far from being countered, made Lin’s leg slide upward.
The secondary strike connected directly with his left temple.
The world exploded in white lights and distorted sounds. Ren was launched sideways, his body spinning like a broken doll before crashing with a violent impact against the ground.
His partial fusion deactivated imdiately. The small jade scales that had covered his skin vanished like smoke, leaving him completely human and vulnerable.
Lin blinked several tis, her accelerated regeneration already working to repair the damage to her eyes. The tears dried and her vision began to clear. When she could finally focus, she saw Ren motionless.
A deep sigh escaped her transford lips.
"Why be rash then stop you reckless pupil," she murmured, but there was genuine affection in her voice. "He had the perfect opportunity but stopped because he didn’t want to hurt ?"
The satisfaction of knowing herself loved and important mixed with a profound sadness. Part of her felt proud that Ren had chosen not to hurt her, to protect her even in such a critical mont of their confrontation.
But another part felt shattered at having to stop him in this forced way when he clearly felt the need to pay for the enormous guilt that hurt him so much. Guilt that, as a child, he shouldn’t have to carry.
’It’s better this way,’ she told herself while approaching the motionless body. ’He’s not ready for an expedition of that magnitude. Zhao can fly and still considers the Gold 3 ring a potential death sentence. Ren on foot, with half his power... it would be almost suicide without knowing what’s under that thing.’
But when she was halfway there...
Ren raised his head.
Blood dripped from a wound on his scalp. His right shoulder was crushed, clearly dislocated or worse.
But his eyes...
His eyes burned with a determination that made Lin stop cold.
The accelerated regeneration of his wolverine was already working. The superficial wounds began to close visibly.
Ren tensed his right arm muscles more and more despite the pain until it snapped back into place with a snap.
The healing wasn’t perfect yet, but it was already functional.
"Ren," Lin spoke with a softness that contrasted dramatically with her powerful rged form. "Please. You’re no longer fused. You can’t fight like this. And the truth is..." her voice broke slightly, "it hurts to have to truly harm you to stop you. I only do it because this is better than losing you forever!"
Ren managed to get back into guard position. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse but firm.
"I know, teacher." He spat blood from his mouth. "But I need to correct my mistakes."
The mories lashed him like an avalanche. Larissa crying while he tore the last crystal fragnt from her. Luna sobbing in his arms over broken promises and sacrifices she didn’t understand. His fungus encasing itself to protect him from his own arrogance.
Each mory was a blade proding deeper.
"Everything is my fault," he whispered, and then couldn’t help but scream the words. "EVERYTHING IS MY FAULT!"
The mana in his chest responded to the raw, unfiltered guilt. The energy encysted in the seed of his core pulsed stronger than ever, sending waves of power through his mana channels like electricity through overloaded cables.
The sensation was like being struck by lightning from within.
He got into guard position, but sothing had changed. Instead of wind and earth, now he channeled wind and fire. The sa elents that Lin used.
Lin felt her heart split in two.
"Curses," she murmured, biting her lower lip until it bled. Her transford fangs pierced her own flesh. "You really aren’t going to give any choice but to drag you by force like always."
She prepared to launch a final attack that would knock him out definitively. She couldn’t allow him to continue hurting himself through his obstinacy.
But when she launched forward, Ren did sothing completely unexpected.
Instead of trying to dodge or block, he extended his elental control toward Lin herself. Wind and fire, not just around his own body, but also manipulating the elents she used to propel herself.
The perfect mont ca as Lin was already completely committed to her attack. Ren twisted his elental control like a screw, using Lin’s own speed and montum to spin her violently to one side.
Lin landed in a completely different position than she had planned, her perfect balance broken for the first ti in the fight.
She turned imdiately, preparing for the next exchange, but froze at what she saw.
The mana in Ren’s core had beco visible. Currents of pure energy spiraled around his chest like a miniature galaxy, pulsing with a light that made the stars seem dim.
The "roots" of the encysted seed began to erge through microscopic cracks in its protective shielding.
Filants that seed corrupted, black as ink, extended beneath his skin creating intricate patterns that branched from his heart.
Where the marks appeared, mana concentrated and stabilized, creating nodes of power that transford his entire energy system into sothing completely new.
The transformation was beautiful and terrifying.
"I don’t want to hurt you," Ren said. "So I’ll only use my body as you wish."
With precise elental control, he fixed his golden dagger to his left thigh with a small pocket of shadows, securing it in place as part of his equipnt rather than his primary weapon. He got into guard with his bare hands, but the fire and wind around him began to behave in ways different from basic elental laws.
The two elents didn’t simply coexist, they fused. Fire beca hotter fed by the wind, while the wind beca electrically charged by intense friction.
The final result was a theoretical elental fusion similar to Selphira’s ice: pure elental lightning.
Sparks danced between his fingers. The air itself seed to vibrate with their power.
And for the first ti in the entire fight, Ren didn’t wait for Lin to attack first.
He launched forward without any bestial transformation, propelled solely by elental control and pure will. But his speed was impossible. Lightning propelled him in ways that defied by far the cost of energy used, creating afterimages that glowed in the air like brief ghosts.
Lin reacted by instinct, launching a kick that should have connected easily. But when her leg entered contact with the elental storm surrounding Ren, she felt her own elents be torn from her control.
Her wind and fire beca part of Ren’s electrical charge. Instead of propelling her toward him, the combined energy turned against her like a treacherous serpent.
The electrical shock that followed wasn’t just Ren’s power. It was the power of both, multiplied and refocused into a single point of impact.
Lin felt her muscles convulse involuntarily. Her transformation flickered like a wavering fla. Every nerve in her body scread in unison as thousands of volts ran through her system.
She tried to resist, to maintain her fusion active, to counterattack through the pain. But Ren hadn’t finished.
The mana vortex in his chest contracted like a collapsing star. All the energy that had been circulating freely concentrated into a single impulse.
Power beyond his normal limits flowed through new pathways.
"I’m sorry," Ren whispered, placing his palm against Lin’s chest.
And he released everything.
The explosion of pure energy wasn’t violent in the traditional sense. There were no flas or flying fragnts. Instead, it was as if soone had reset Lin’s nervous system.
Her fusion deactivated instantly. Her eyes rolled back. Her body, which had been a perfectly coordinated war machine, collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Lin fell unconscious before touching the ground.
Ren caught her before she crashed, holding her with his trembling arms while the last sparks of electricity faded from his skin.
The silence that followed was absolute. Only the sound of his labored breathing and the wind moving distant leaves.
He had won.
Against all odds, against an opponent superior in every aspect, he had found a way to triumph.
But as he looked at Lin’s peaceful face unconscious in his arms, victory felt more like punishnt than anything else.
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