The Crystals - 66 Lazuli's true power

“Red-1! You are here too! But now that you mentioned it, I wonder what’s left for us to see,” replied Zohaifa.

Hagan and Lazuli stood face to face, ready to shift the battle to its climax! Hagan started controlling the tiles of the stage, thus deforming the stage again and trying to hit Lazuli from all sides. Lazuli proficiently dodged all of them.

Suddenly, the platform beneath Lazuli moved out. But instead of falling, Lazuli was found floating in the air with no ground beneath her.

“Clever move!” said Lazuli, “Trying to win this by a cheap trick like that, huh? It will take more to defeat me.”

“I was trying to win using the tournament rules to win this without injuring someone. But it seems we will have sort it out the hard way,” Hagan replied with a smirk.

Again, the tiles from the platform and the rocks from the ground started to hit Lazuli. She flew around to dodge it.

Bam!

A punch from Hagan threw her down. But she stopped herself mid-air before falling.

“Hmm… You can fight independently while using those rocks? That must take a lot of concentration. I don’t think people stronger than you can perform that,” said Lazuli.

“People stronger than me? Are there any?” he asked.

“It seems you didn’t play the hero in too many places. The Cant World is big. There are a lot stronger than you. By the end of this battle, you will find one.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s continue for now”

Hagan again used his powers to let all the tiles and rocks hover around Lazuli. Then, along with the rocks, Hagan jumped at Lazuli.

“Let’s see you dodge that!” Hagan shouted.

“Do I need to?” replied Lazuli.

Realizing something, Hagan instantly stopped midway.

‘Yellow outburst!’

Yellow liquid-plasma generated around Lazuli like a shield and uniformly scattered at all directions, destroying all the rocks and tiles.

“Phew, good thing I noticed,” said Hagan, “Let’s finish this now.”

Hagan stood on solid ground. He let out a beastly scream standing in an athletic stance. His already tone muscles became a little buffer. A red aura surrounded him. The ground started shaking. Many of the fighters who could sense aura were astonished by Hagan’s aura.

“So, this is how aura charging looks like when done by a pro,” said Zohaifa who is still calm, “It is yet to catch up with what I felt. The absorpian daughter!”

Hagan slowly moved to a neutral stance indicating the termination of his charging though his aura was still flowing just as much. He stared at Lazuli waiting for her to charge up. Lazuli, apprehending Hagan’s indirect indication, widened her feet to charge began charging as well. Zohaifa’s concentration spiked up. And he was certainly not the only one interested.

Every fighter felt immense pressure. Luna’s folded hands fell from her chest and her mouth almost did too. But the one closest to Lazuli was Hagan whose knees started to shake.

“This is equivalent to the absorpian daughter!” Zohaifa screamed out, his eyes widened with excitement.

Hagan slapped himself on both cheeks to get his focus back and pushed himself to throw a punch at Lazuli. But she continued to charge heeding no attention to Hagan’s existence. She shifted her voice to a scream and put her aura charging to the end, the side effect of which made the ground of the whole arena crack.

“Holy hell! She surpassed the daughter,” said Zohaifa.

Hagan fell on his knees and with a soft voice hiding from everyone except Lazuli, he spoke, “I surrender!”

Lazuli let her aura vanish and come back to a normal state. “Good! A hero needs to know when to give up,” she said.

Lazuli left the platform. The workers came and took Hagan to the participants’ building too. The audience started to talk again but softly. Amidst that murmur, someone called Zohaifa from behind.

“Hey, Zohaifa. I need to ask something.”

Zohaifa looked back. It was IV.

“IV! I am excited to fight you. But it’s clear that the one I will be fighting is Lazuli.”

“Yeah. I guess that is how far I will go too. But I need to ask something.”

“Hmm… You seem to be a friendly person. Asking questions to your rival. I like it. Go ahead.”