Chapter 48

Marcus...

​As Ruvick stood up from his seat he was wondering what was going to happen next. How was Ruvick going to explain the practice of manifestation magic to him in a way that he can understand?

​"Well don't just sit there, get up," Ruvick ordered and Marcus stood up hesitantly.

"So...what are we doing now?"

"We're sparring obviously. I am going to push you to your absolute physical and mental limit until something breaks and brings about a change in your magic," he said casually as if he didn't just threaten Marcus's life.

"Whoa! Hold on a minute!" Marcus protested as a sense of panic started to overwhelm him.

​"Don't worry, I still plan to restrict myself to match your strength so I don't kill you. However, don't think that I will go easy on you either," Ruvick said as he waved his hand and a coatrack appeared out of thin air. He then began stripping off his suit and tie and even his undershirt before hanging it up on the coat rack.

​"I don't want to get your blood all over my nice clothes," Ruvick said as he noticed Marcus's confused expression.

​Realizing that their sparring match was unavoidable, Marcus reached for Light Taker but Ruvick snapped his fingers as if to get his attention.

​"No. We won't be using our swords for this or any other kinds of weapons. We'll be fighting with our bare hands. Also, no armor. If I catch you using your obsidian stone armor, I'll shove my hand through your chest," he said nonchalantly and the blood drained from Marcus's face.

​"S-so, you want me to fight you with no form of defense?" Marcus asked.

​"The best defense is an unstoppable offense. You depend way too much on your armor to protect you in battle and when you are attacking. I want you to focus on utilizing your lightning more often when you fight," he said as he waved his hand and the coat rack vanished into thin air. Ruvick then turned around and Marcus couldn't help but feel intimidated by his impressive muscular physique despite being a walking corpse.

​Ruvick clenched his hands into fists and a dark shadow-like energy started to swirl and condense around his fists and arms as he said, "Tenebris Hominum [In the Darkness of Men]" 

​Realizing that he was staring and not preparing for the fight, Marcus caught himself and quickly released every ounce of power contained within himself as he shouted, "χειμών πνεῦμα!"

"Storm Soul, that's a neat name I guess," he said as he rolled his shoulders.​

Marcus widened his eyes in surprise as he asked in his native tongue, "You can speak Ancient Greek?"

​Ruvick laughed and replied in Japanese, "I can speak any language," he then switched to Russian, "It doesn't matter what language it is, I can speak it."​

Marcus replied in Russian as well, "Its been a while since I spoke Russian. I'm pretty rusty at it." 

​Ruvick switched back to English as he said, "It doesn't matter what we use, just understand that I'll always know what you're saying. I prefer to always maintain a solid means of communication, but now its time to focus."

​Ruvick placed his left foot forward followed by his left hand held in a flat palmed stance facing Marcus while his right hand was clenched into a fist held back in a way that was clearly telegraphed for a punch. It was as if he was doing this on purpose to make sure Marcus was paying attention to every movement he was making in preparation for his attack, and yet Ruvick was too far away to hit him. When he had stood up he had moved to make distance between them.

He swallowed nervously as he wreathed his entire body in lightning and focused it in his eyes as well.

When Ruvick lunged forward as he threw his punch it was faster than anything he had ever had to deal with, even putting Artemis' speed to shame.

Marcus had no way to defend himself as Ruvick's fist slammed into his chest with the force of a meteor, cracking several of his ribs and making him cough up blood as he was sent him flying past the field they were originally fighting in and crashing into the center of Duranell. 

Since he wasn't allowed to use his armor he decided to reinforce his flesh instead by circulating powerful currents of electrical energy and made his body vibrate so fast that it would hopefully neutralize whatever hit him but Ruvick's punch was so devastating and fast that it nearly tore right through him. Not only that but he didn't even have time to react to him because he was too fast. 

​He needed a new method to deal with his speed. 

​In fact, he remembered how Malthael would manipulate time around his body to move so quickly since he was far too large to logically move as fast as he did without it. The only problem with this is that Marcus wasn't really sure how to do that. He knew how to manipulate his perception of time and only accidentally moved his body faster when he was training with Selene but he wasn't sure how to replicate that and use his lightning at the same time.

​He'll just have to feel it out then.

​Using his manipulation over the electrical signals in his body he stopped himself from feeling the pain from when Ruvick punched him and took in a deep breath. He focused on the passage of time and tried to imagine it slowing down to a crawl.

​As he stood up and looked around he realized that all the people around him that were walking around were nothing more than shades, reflections of what they looked like in the actual world.

​Ruvick really meant it when he said they didn't have to worry about destroying everything in sight so long as he was here.

​Right, time to focus back on the fight.

​It was then that Ruvick fell from the sky and crashed to the ground right in front of him.

​"Oh good, you survived. I was worried that I might have atomized you with that first punch. I tried to hold back as much as I could," he said sheepishly.

​"Hah! Good for you!" Marcus laughed back at him as the adrenaline washed over him and he grinned like a maniac before he lunged and punched Ruvick in the face.

​The force released from Marcus's fist was enough to create a shockwave that engulfed the area and blow the buildings all around them to rubble. It was utter devastation and yet...

​Ruvick stood there unmoved and unphased as his head was only moved a few inches from the impact.

​"I see you picked that up from Malthael, yeah? Bending time around your body to increase your speed. Its a neat trick but the problem with that is I can still see you. If I can see you, and I can perceive your speed, then it doesn't matter how fast you go I'll always catch up and exceed you."

​Then, in one swift movement, Ruvick leaned back as he arc his body and kicked Marcus in the ribs and he could feel some of them break but he was able to see it coming and braced himself. 

​Rather than being sent flying, he merely stumbled back a few feet as he tightened his muscles in time and focused his energy on negating the force of Ruvick's kick. He then quickly mended his broken ribs as if the kick had never happened.

​Ruvick raised his eyebrows as if mildly impressed and said, "Well, you can keep up well enough for now using this method but eventually you'll run out of ways to defend from me."

​"Bring it on you emo bastard," Marcus shouted back and Ruvick gleefully laughed at the insult.

​The two of them traded blows with Marcus landing more attacks as he poured more energy into slowing down time around him to increase his speed while Ruvick's punches were still just as terrifyingly powerful. 

​The biggest issue with this is the fact that even if Marcus continued to slow down time around his body to make his body appear faster, it didn't do anything to increase his actual velocity. His attacks kept the same amount of energy and force as they would if he were to attack Ruvick without slowing time around him. Not only that but he couldn't absorb Ruvick's magic because he had no idea what it was made of or what it would do to him if tried. From what he could tell, it didn't seem that Marcus had any way to increase the force behind his strikes to do any more damage than what he had done with his first punch. 

Shit.

​Not only that but every fighting technique that Marcus tried, Ruvick already seemed to know how to counter it perfectly.

​"Boxing, Krav Maga, Taekwondo, Jujitsu, and even Dim Mak?! How do you-?" he tried to say but Ruvick interrupted him.

​"Stop asking stupid questions and just assume I know everything!" he responded as he roundhouse kicked Marcus in the face. 

​As he fell to the ground he grabbed his nose with his fingers and pinched it, realizing it was broken he blew out all the blood out from it that he could and stood back up.

​"I'm gonna be pissed if you fucked up my face with that kick," he said and Ruvick smirked.

​"Walk it off."

​Marcus looked down at his chest and realized that not only had his shirt been torn to shreds but he was shocked to see just how much blood and dirt had caked onto his body. With all this blood and his lightning keep his body together and preventing the pain signals from reaching his body, he figured that as soon as he stopped using his magic that he would collapse.

​"Honestly...I don't know if I can force myself to go through much more. Once we stop I'm going to collapse when they pain signals reach my brain," he said and Ruvick blinked in surprise.

​"Hold on, you've been sealing off your pain receptors all this time? That's not good."

​Faster than his brain could process, Ruvick cleared the distance between them and placed his hand on Marcus's forehead. A moment passed and he could feel a mark being left on his body. As soon as Ruvick removed his hand, all of the pain that he was suppressing hit him all at once. He shouted in agony as the aching from his broken bones and sore muscles reverberated through him.

​"I figured that the reason you were able to keep fighting so well was because I wasn't pushing you hard enough when in fact you were ignoring the pain and fighting without any regard for what it would mean if you fought with it. Pain is an amazing teacher and motivator, without it you can't grasp what your limits are or how to push past them. Anger, grief, pain, all of these emotions push us to reach for greater strength. Fighting without any emotion is meaningless."

​Through gritted teeth Marcus asked, "Did you just curse me the same way that you did Artemis?"

​"Of course," Ruvick said plainly as if admitting it to Marcus wasn't a problem.

​Hearing that made his blood boil and he could hear his heart beat pounding in his ears alongside the throbbing pain he felt. 

​He poured every last scrap of his power into moving faster than Ruvick could see. As this happened, his anger got the better of him and he formed a poorly hidden sword of obsidian in his right hand that Ruvick instantly noticed.

"What did I tell you about using your Dragon Glass and swords?" he said but his words fell on deaf ears as Marcus's anger clouded his mind and he thought of nothing but killing him.

​From the very pit of his stomach, he roared and lunged forward. As he did, time slowed down so much that Ruvick looked to be nothing more than a living statue as he had gone completely still as Marcus ran towards him.

​Marcus pulled back his arm and right before he was about to swing his sword he locked eyes with Ruvick's own and realized that despite the fact that he could perceive Marcus's speed, it seemed that he couldn't react to it at all.

​Good.​

Marcus swung his sword and cleaved through Ruvick's neck.

​He looked back and noticed that his body still hasn't moved. 

​Hold on..., the more he thought about it, the more he realized it didn't make any sense. He shouldn't have been able to move any faster than what he's been capable of up to this point, so how did he manage to move fast enough to overpower Ruvick and kill him?

​Well...it didn't matter. Ruvick's dead now and he can finally relax.

​Even with all the pain going through his body, he was able to remain standing as he calmed his magic down and everything went back to normal.

​He then looked around and realized that not only had he killed Ruvick but he had also broken out of the Shadow Realm that was made to contain them and prevent their fight from destroying the world around them.

​Marcus panicked as he made sure that none of their fight had spilled out into the real world as he noticed he was standing in the middle of town square in Duranell, covered in blood and dirt, holding a sword he had just used to decapitate Ruvick, with dozens of people staring at him in fear and horror.

​Thankfully there was no damage done to the city aside from what he had done to their mental state appearing out of no where and looking like a crazed axe murderer.

​Among all the people that began to run away from him out of fear was a single woman that remained in a bluish white shirt and worn black jeans, and wrapped around her chest was a sword strap which held what looked to be a katana on her back. As he looked at her face he noticed the jet black hair and the flames that burned brightly at their ends a well as the almond shaped blue eyes that stared at him in surprise.

​"M-Marcus?"

​He swallowed as he tried to talk and ended up ingesting his own blood.

​Before the exhaustion completely took over his body as the adrenaline started to pass, he was only able to ask a single question before he fainted.

​"Who the hell are you?"