Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 275: Return Of The Dragon Fist

In the normal world, Laz wouldn't be able to move so fast that he could vanish from sight. Even though people have spoken about the ability to trick the eye with flashy techniques or unique footwork, the fact is that in modern times, a normal person is able to process information much quicker than someone could back before the invention of high speed travel in things like cars and planes. What's more, video games have dominated the modern world, causing even young children to be able to follow along with fast moving action.

Due to the ability that we have to process and react, our eyes are much harder to trick now.

Despite this, Laz was able to move in a way that caused him to disappear from Malene and Ruby's vision.

Neither of them seemed surprised though as both thought they had a pretty good understanding of his body's strength. In this world of free form movement, at least this much was expected.

Neither of them hesitated either. Ruby jumped back just as Malene sent out a ball of fire at the spot where Ruby had been standing.

The flaming ball of energy seemed randomly thrown, but as soon as it landed on the spot, hit stopped moving for a brief second before exploding outwards.

As the waves of fiery energy billowed out, Laz's outline could be seen within the orangish red flames for just a moment before he disappeared once again.

To the girls surprise, the fire had no effect on it.

Ruby turned to look at Malene who simply sighed and said,

"Yeah. Alright. Alright..."

Even though Laz was moving at high speed, he managed to hear this exchange and couldn't help but wonder what they were going to do.

Just as the question formed though, Malene brought her hands together and curled her fingers in a strange way. As Laz looked on closer, Malene's body seemed to shine orangish red for one moment before becoming a bluish, aqua color the next. Then, like a stone thrown in a pond, her body reappeared in the light, looking almost transparent and invisible.

Laz was amazingly confused.

Or he was for a moment, until Malene raised her hands again. This time, the movements she made were different from before. As such, instead of a ball of fire forming in front of her, a ball of water formed instead.

Just as Laz was processing this, the ball shot forward, right into the path he was going to take.

The timing on it was so perfect that Laz, who was moving at high speed, couldn't change his direction. As such, he hit the ball of water straight on.

Perhaps one might think that hitting a ball of water would produce a negligible result. After all, it was just a ball of water that Laz was coming in contact with, something along the line of being hit with a large water balloon. But the result was anything but normal.

The water had been infused with Malene's energy and was there for more like a water bomb than a water bubble. As soon as Laz hit it, he ended up being blown backwards. Loosing his in air footing caused Laz to fall like a rock in an arch, only stopping when he crashed into a building while creating a huge hole in the side of it.

It hurt, but Laz's body was far stronger than anyone could have imagined, including himself.

Dragging himself out of the rubble, Laz brushed some dust off while taking a glance at the girls. He noticed that their faces showed a mix of awe and fear, obviously not having any clue as to how strong the water bomb was before using it.

"Are you ok?" Ruby called out while Malene looked embarrassed..

"Yeah. That packed one hell of a punch though. How did you do that? Just the strength of that was many times stronger than the fire ball..." Laz had calmed down a little after being hit by the blast, especially after noticing the girl's faces and concern.

"My forms are based on my spirit's strength. Because of that, the longer I spend with a spirit, the more strength I gain while using their forms," Malene answered, not hiding anything.

"Aqua?" Laz asked.

"Yeah... Are you sure you're ok?" Malene still looked worried. When ever the girls fought in this space, no matter how strongly they went at it, they still held back. This was because they didn't want to do anything to hurt the bond between them. But Laz was different. After all, if you couldn't go all out against your man, who could you go all out with?

"Fine. This is great actually. I've never felt this alive and free before," Laz replied, expressing the feelings in his heart. This small world allowed you to bring out the whole of your strength, something he never had the peasure of doing before.

And it felt great so he wasn't just being nice.

Seeing Laz in a good mood, Malene and Ruby smiled.

"Then lets keep going." With that, Ruby moving in quickly while Malene kept waving her hands. Each wave would send out a blade of water that assaulted Laz. Unlike the water bomb, these would hinder him more than anything, but that was the kind of assistance Ruby needed.

As she came in close, her claws flashed with light, forcing Laz to avoid them. Every time he did, the water blade would hit him, causing him to lose his balance. Although Laz was quick enough the keep up, the combined force from the two girls didn't allow any openings for him to fight back.

As the battle wore on, Laz also noticed another problem. Ruby's stamina seemed endless while the water blades kept flying. Although Ruby hadn't been able to land a solid hit, the water blades were just too much for him to avoid. After being hit by them enough, he noticed that his energy was vanishing at a noticeable rate, something that shouldn't happen considering he hadn't used any moves that consumed his energy.

'It's the water...' Laz thought to himself, as though noticing something. The water blades that Malene had been sending out were more than just a distraction. Every time one hit, it sapped his energy. One or two wouldn't make a difference, but several of them again and again was causing a huge drain.

Laz knew that this couldn't last. He didn't want to lose so horribly to these girls and embarrass himself.

Thinking along these lines though, he also understood that he didn't know any actual moves. Ruby had her natural agility and claws that were acting like weapons while Malene was relying on her body's energy to send out those water blades. Laz could attach his flames to his hands but basically that was like holding up a stick that was on fire and swinging it around. As for making it explode from his body, while that looked cool, it was practically useless.

Thinking back, the only energy type moves that Laz knew was the long forgotten Dragon Fist he had learned from his grandpa Chu.

While recalling the information in his head, Laz dropped back and planted his feet on the 'ground.' Just as the girls were wondering what he was doing, Laz moved his body and punched out.

Much to everyone's surprise, not only did his energy come billowing out with the attack, but the energy resembled a dragon made up of black flames.

Before Ruby even understood what was happening, the black flame dragon bashed into her, causing her body to shoot out like a cannon ball.

As she arched through the air, her body flew past Malene who was dumbstruck while looking on.

As Laz drew back his fist, he couldn't help but stare at it like an idiot.

'I did that?" He had no idea how that move he had learned so long ago would be so effective. Luckily, he had controlled his energy when he had done so and only inserted a little bit into the attack. So while Ruby's body had taken a hit, she wasn't seriously hurt. More like seriously surprised. All of them had rather strong bodies, especially Ruby who had undergone the tempering in the cave pool.

On a side note, Ruby and Leona had revealed the cave location to Malene and Kennedy, but the energy from the pool took a while to recover. And even then it wasn't nearly as condensed as it was when Laz had first stepped into it or when Ruby and Leona used it later. It needed far longer to recover. So although Malene and Kennedy used it and the effects were amazing... they weren't quite as amazing as before.

It was still available resource that Kennedy decided was worth buying and therefore purchased everything around that mountain. Even now, Blood Moon was doing some tests to figure out if the pool could be artificially enhanced.

Seeing that Ruby was ok as she stood up and brushed herself off, Laz turned his attention to Malene and smiled.

"Time for your punishment," Laz said, his eyes twinkling.

"Oh no..." Malene didn't even bother to face Laz by herself after seeing Ruby sent flying. Instead, she turned around and took off, straight towards Ruby. Although Malene could fight hand to hand, it really wasn't her strong point. Killing a few low level clowns wasn't an issue, but towards a monster like Laz, she knew she didn't have a chance.

"Coming in," Malene said as she flew at Ruby. Ruby had just noticed that Laz was becoming aggressive and flew back up just as Malene came over. Without a word, Malene whisper something while making signs with her hands. Suddenly, a sheet of water covered Ruby, causing her to have a very thin layer of coverage over her entire body.

This was another type of ability Malene could do thanks to her affinity with Aqua. While it didn't have a name, the girls just called it boost. Once covered by the layer of water, one would find their strength, speed and defense greatly boosted. Towards a range fighter like Malene, it was somewhat useless. And in her case, her water body already had these abilities. For a fighter class like Ruby though, the benefits were immense.

Just as Laz thought he took the upper hand, Ruby came back in swinging. Her claw strike was at least twice as fast as before. Before Laz could even react, the claws had penetrated his black flame layer and hit his body, causing a fierce pain and ripping open cuts down his chest.

Although surprised, Laz reacted quickly. Jumping back to avoid the next strike, Laz put some distance in between himself and Ruby, only to find her charging forward. Seeing this though, Laz smiled.

Laz's ability in close combat had strengthened immensely thanks to practicing with Julia. Although he still wasn't as smooth flowing with his abilities as her, his natural strength more than made up for it normally. This was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing meant he could win by simply over powering Julia. The curse was that he could never fully grasp her technique due to being able to negate it. But now, being pressured, the lines of attack being shown from Ruby became clear. Even if he wasn't fast enough to totally avoid them, he could predict what she would do and react in a way that made her have to go on defense as opposed to offense.

Ruby's body truely was remarkable. With her snake like lower half and the explosive strength and agility of her upper body, her attacks could come at any and all angles. This was what had caused Laz the headache.

He could tell the girls had truly been working hard.

That wasn't enough to stop him from shutting her down though.

Laz fainted forward, showing an opening to Ruby who took it without question. As he claw swung around to where Laz should have been, he dropped back slightly and reached forward, grabbing onto her arm. Just as she swung out with her other arm, Laz dropped down and slipped around this one too. Slipping behind her while she was trying to free herself, Laz locked her arms around her chest with one arm while leaning down, Causing her to be off balance and almost fall forward,

Laz didn't let her fall, instead with her leaning forward while stuck in his grip, Laz swung his hand down super hard while releasing another Dragon Fist, this time though the energy was channeled through his hand. As his palm hit, it made contact with where Ruby's butt would have been if she were still in human form.

The unexpected hit caused Ruby to freeze up while being unable to react.

Laz then struck again, causing her well rounded and perky cheeks to shake from the force.

Not only was Ruby dumbstruck by Laz's action's Malene had no idea what to make of them either. She hadn't attacked because using the boost ability meant her one hand had to be constantly point at the person with the blessing while channeling the energy. As such, she couldn't use her hands launch and more blades or balls. Originally, the had bet on this allowing Ruby to be strong enough to beat Laz.

They would pay for this miscalculation with their loss.

Laz couldn't help but laugh.

"Give up?" He asked while still restraining her.

"Never," Ruby replied while while smiling back.

Laz then struck out a few more times, the sound of the slapping echoing across the night like sky.

"Never?" He asked again.

"Come on. Spank me harder daddy. Make it really hurt," was Ruby's cheeky reply.

Hearing this, Malene dropped the buff effect. One of the funny things about Ruby while in this form was that she was super aggressive and much more animal like. That also meant that once her switch was flipped, there was no going back.

'Now the real battle begins,' she thought to herself with a grin.