Heios super-hopped towards him. The shockwave was enough to create a hole underneath him, but the air friction would lift him upwards. He would try to kick him in the face.

  "Even Avu isn't here. What a test of strength you've been put through." He blocked his kick.

  "I don't need him... to beat... you!" Heios would grab Vincent's head with both his hands and headbutt him.

  "Rgh...!" Vincent would be stunned for a moment, but he would recover quickly. "Rupturing Hollow!" He formed a tiny orb from his finger tips and threw it past Heios. As the orb exploded, it pulled in any attack like it was a mini-black hole.

  Heios, the simpleton that he was, tried to utilize an ability but was soon pulled towards the orb. The mini-black hole moved away from the area, and so did Heios, as he got pulled in. The orb would then collapse and implode, creating a massive explosion.

  "HEIOS!" Jasper would run towards Heios.

  Satono was distracted by that explosion, she had to look back. "Cheap parlor tricks... I can see you're afraid of 'that'!"

  "... Don't act like you know me." Vincent said to Satono. He knew that she knew about his unstable Soul, and he knew that she was trying to get his attention. But he didn't want to hear it.

  Satono sped towards Vincent with her Nhelv, extending the length and swinging it over him. Vincent was caught in the crossfire, unable to block. Satono's Nhelv had a lot of power behind it. Satono was a lot stronger than anyone would think. She used to be on par even with the Great Kamisword.

  She utilized her speed to the extreme, using another ability. She pulled herself in towards Vincent, locking him in an unescapable barrage of powerful hits. Every hit felt like a freight train.

  "GAH!"

  Vincent pushed Satono back with a small shockwave, changing his pace. Satono was a hard-hitter, and to avoid getting hit, he had to focus on evading rather than blocking.

  Aria just stood back. Her mind was in a state of disarray. She was in no condition to fight. Her feelings were getting the best of her, and she was losing sight of what she was fighting for in the first place.

  "You're struggling, Kyuga!"

  Satono's voice brought her back to reality. She looked up to see him struggling, he was getting weaker with each hit. She could tell that he was exhausted. It was a surprise to her that he was able to fight them all off, even after that huge attack that Heios did. He should be dead, but he was somehow still standing.

  Satono manifested Soul-Blasts to keep him occupied while he was struggling. What made Vincent stand out from ordinary Soul-Wielders was because of his intense stamina. Even though an unstable Soul would drain quicker, he was able to stay up for longer. Satono didn't understand how he did it, but she did know that he was running on fumes at this point. They have been fighting for 15 minutes straight, he simply can't keep it up.

  That's why Satono thought that if she had to deliver a finishing blow, it would be now. As Vincent backflipped to avoid Soul-Blasts, Satono was clearing distance.

  "Die!" She would thrust her Nhelv forward in an attempt to deliver a lethal stab.

  And that was her mistake.

  Vincent was seen smirking. It was a trap. Vincent had been charging an attack mid-evasion. He would let himself get stabbed in the arm, just about missing his neck. Satono didn't see it coming, that someone would willingly let himself get stabbed.

  "Nice hit." Vincent simply said, pointing at her stomach. He was powering up an orb at his fingertip. "Destructive Supernova."

  Destructive Supernova - an attack that explodes from yet another tiny orb into total destruction. With a three-second impact frame - the radius of the blast would equate that of an A-Bomb.

  "... SHIT-" Just like that, Satono flew away from the battlefield, her body was limp as she flew. The blast was strong enough to break the sound barrier and cause the very ground to quake. The shockwave that was produced from this was enough to shake the entire canyon, and everyone felt it.

  "The Testharian- HG-" Aria was caught by the force of it.

  Jasper's eyes widened, as he stopped attending to Heios , thrown back by the shockwave of the explosion. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?"

  Aria's eyes were also wide open. She could feel the power from that attack, and she knew that it was a big mistake to let her guard down. She was lucky that he wasn't targeting her, or she would've been in the same position as Satono. She stood up, looking at Satono from a few hundred meters away. "I... I didn't notice..."

  Satono was put out of commission. Not enough to kill her but definitely to incapacitate her. She wasn't dead, just unconscious. The blast was strong enough to break her bones, but not strong enough to kill her. Her body was probably shattered into pieces, but she would heal up soon. She was lucky that the impact wasn't enough to turn her into dust, since that could've happened had he not held back.

  This, was the Soul of Destruction. From things as small as a fly, you could create a blast so big that it could destroy the entire planet. This was why he was called the 'King of Destruction'.

  Vincent's body would shake as he was drawing too much Soul-Energy. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue for ordinary Soul-Wielders. But for unstable Souls that inhabit a person's body, it's very difficult to control the energy that it outputs.

  The entire area was in smoke, flames. Magma began spilling from the cracks of the canyon and the ground began to shake. Jasper grabbed at the sand, pulling himself onto all fours.

  Jasper was caught by the tail-end of the explosion. Half of his helmet and upper cloak was burnt off by the force and was only further damaged by the shockwave. Turning, he spotted Heios again.

  "Heios!" He sprinted towards him.

  "HEIOS! Heios..!" He crouched down by his side, grabbing his shirt and trying to shake him awake.

  Heios's entire upper body was filled with first to second degree burns. It wasn't fatal, however seemed bad. He wasn't protected like Jasper was. "Fuck... fuck fuck fuck... it hurts..."

  "Damnit..." He held his hand over the injuries, few small tendrils attached to him, slowly healing him. Jasper had depleted mot of his Soul-Energy, making it only a mild painkiller. "No..."

  "I can't heal you like this, and we can't fight him like this... This is a losing battle, we should go back-"

  "...Gh... tell that to Aria..." Heios turned over.

  Heios would slowly stand up. He only had one eye open and he couldn't stand upright.

  "Lord Veyron is counting on us to kill him."

  "No... you're not getting back into the fight. We aren't prepared enough-"

  "Shut the fuck up, Jasper!" Heios fully stood up, coughing out blood.

  "Me? I'm the literal crazy person here but I'm making more sense!" Jasper yelled back. He wasn't having it with Heios's erratic behaviour. "This entire fight, you've blabbered on, focusing more on that than fighting your fucking target! Now look at you!"

  "DIRECT ORDERS FROM LORD VEYRON, YOU BRAINLESS MAD SCIENTIST!"

  "Oh, am I now!? Well let me tell you this, you barking shithorse! I think that Lord Veyron would PREFER not handling making a new TEAM OF FOLLOWERS! We aren't retreating, but you are done!"

  "I am NOT DO-"

  "YOU CAME AFTER ME, YOU WANTED THIS!" Vincent shouted at them.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  And right he was. Vincent didn't want this fight, he was forced to. And now he had to fight to the death. They were going to have to fight until he died, and that's not something that he wanted to do. Not to his own friends.

  Both Heios and Jasper turned their head to the fight.

  "HMPH." Aria increased her speed and charged at Vincent. "You betrayed us! Why else should we let you live!?"

  Her swings and strikes were filled with anger. Partially at herself, and partially at Vincent. She didn't know how she should feel, and that was making her more angry. She was confused, and scared. Scared of losing Vincent, and scared of what he was capable of. Letting Vincent live was treason for UoK, but that's what she wanted to do.

  Vincent dodged back and parried her swings with his fists. "I had my reasons! I'd rather keep doing what I do right now instead of being Lord Veyron's slave! Sheep for slaughter! Sooner or later everything inside your organization will change like they removed the Super Berserkers! You're nothing but a pawn!"

  "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO ABANDONED US! WE WERE YOUR FRIENDS, KYUGA! HELL WITH YOUR REASONS! It's clear you came to kill! You had the intention to kill Heios and that Testharian!" Aria yelled back at him.

  "You think I have the intention to kill!?" Vincent parried her final strike, forcibly knocking her back.

  "I wouldn't believe it any other way."

  Aria put her blade up as a sign of killing intent. Everybody was out to kill Vincent. Heios, Jasper, Aria and even the Testharian he doesn't know all had killing intent. It's what he had signed up for, anyways. He was a traitor to the Uprising of Kytron, so it was understandable that people would be after his head.

  "Heios is still alive, that Testharian you recruited is still alive. I don't want to kill any of you, Aria... but you're giving me no other choice by forcing me to fight you!"

  "Choice...? CHOICE? YOU LEFT US TO DIE 5 YEARS AGO! IT WAS JUST BY THE WILL OF THE SOUL THAT WE MADE IT OUT!" Her aura was engulfed in rage. The Soul-Aura of Aria increased, and so did her Soul-Energy levels. She was reaching 3 million, which was quite a feat.

  "I had to... It was the only way to clear my tracks up until n-"

  "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!"

  ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

  You don't get it.

  You don't get it!

  "You don't get it! You never do! You never heed to whatever I say! It doesn't matter what we do! It doesn't matter! Nothing about it matters at all! It doesn't matter at all! And I don't want to hear anything from you saying otherwise! It doesn't fucking matter! It doesn't matter if we're bad men! It doesn't matter if we do bad stuff! It doesn't matter if we're sheep to the slaughter! It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter if we're working for an evil organization! It doesn't matter if all we do is fight! It doesn't matter if we're good, bad, neutral! It doesn't matter if we're on the brink of death, fighting for our life or not! None of it matters at all! It doesn't matter what we do! Never! We always look after each other like friends! We were friends, Kyuga! We were all friends to you! I was MORE than a friend to you! We had the greatest times of our lives together! Did that all not matter to you!? Were we all just entertainment to you!? We are all human to the core! You even said so yourself! You told me that, Kyuga! You told me that we were all human to the core! Did you forget about that? I know you did, I know you fucking did because you wouldn't have left me and Heios and the rest behind! We were your friends, we are still your friends! It doesn't matter if we're enemies, we're still the same people you knew from years ago! You shouldn't've ran away! You shouldn't have!"

  The rant was so long, that Vincent had a hard time processing everything that was said to him. But it did make him stop for a moment. The words that were said, was the last straw. If there was anything that would've convinced him of anything, it would've been this. Aria was his everything, and he knows that. He knew that from the start, and that's why he was hesitant to fight her. That's why he didn't want to fight her.

  But even so, Aria didn't know what the real reason was.

  “BECAUSE... I... I...”

  She stumbled back even more, completely lowering her blade. And she took the deepest breath ever and said:

  "I STILL LOVE YOU!"

  "..."

  ...

  ...

  ...

  "KYUGA!" Heios yelled from the top of his lungs. He was around 200 meters away from Aria and Vincent. His raging aura was visible.

  "... You should leave, Aria... Heios won't quit until I'm 6 feet under..." He said, before walking out and towards Heios. "Heios. Do you really want to kill me for your own benefit or are you just following Veyron's orders?"

  "... It should be obvious by now, 'Vincent Sparks'... You knew the rules. Those who leave, will leave forever. You knew this when you first joined, and you knew this when you left. It's too late to change the past."

  "I never wanted to fight you, Heios. I never wanted to kill you, either."

  "I know, Kyuga. But I do. And I don't do it because Lord Veyron gave me the orders. I want to do it because I lost a friend, who I put so much trust on, and took it all away, like how my brothers in Venus took it away. I never told you this, have I? My entire village was decimated, brought to the ground because one of my brothers betrayed us. Jasheu snitched on my entire village for being against the revolution. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I simply just can't let that go? The anger I feel, the lust for blood I feel, the traitorous brother that brought my entire village down birthed that. I hate betrayals, I hate them. I hate traitors more than I hate myself. That's why I want to kill you, Kyuga. I fucking hate you."

  Vincent simply chuckled after a minute of silence. Heios was right. He didn't tell him that.

  "... I would've hated for it to be the second one. I would never like to take you as the type to follow orders like a dog. You were always a hard dog to tame, even for someone like Veyron. But at the same time..."

  Vincent got into stance.

  "It hurts. We were good friends, Heios. I will never forget that."

  "Just shut up." Heios got into stance as well.

  While Vincent was waiting for an attack, Heios was already moving at him, at a breakneck pace.

  Aria was watching from afar. A lot of things were going through her head, and a lot of things were on the line. If Heios wins, then Vincent dies. If Vincent wins, then Heios dies. She couldn't let either of that happen. She couldn't lose them, not again.

  Heios started with simple beams, after each beam, he would duplicate it.

  Vincent put both arms out and slapped them away.

  Heios would start running towards him while sending away beams. Vincent would just block them using orbs to destroy them.

  "FIGHT ME, KYUGA!" Heios accelerated towards him to get a punch him, in which it connected. It knocked him off his feet. He continued his rampage by punching and kicking.

  "Hng!" Vincent had used up way too much energy- all he could do now is defend himself.

  Heios manifested his Enhanced Arm on both his arms, turning them into energy blades and started slashing his entire body, inflicting pain. The wound would glow green and it gave off a burning sensation. He proceeded to kick him up into the air, vulnerable for any beams.

  .:. H-He's not giving me time to recover... .:.

  Heios's anger made him 2 to 3 times stronger than normal. He would whip out his silicon cards to split the waves, ensuring that he was completely engulfed in penetrating beams. He won't be saved the second time.

  "NO!" Aria screamed, and was going to run towards them, but Jasper stopped her.

  "Stay still, Aria." He was holding her back.

  "Silicon Burn!" He would cry out from the top of his lungs, sending 100 beams at his place, while duplicating all of them tenfold by using the cards. There would be about 100 thousand condensed beams in the sky, all directed at him.

  "JASPER, STOP HEIOS!"

  "..." Jasper's eyes widened, but he shook his head. "Lord Veyron will kill you... and I can't afford that to happen. I'm sorry."

  Vincent was hit by all of them. Green energy covered the area like a blanket, and Vincent could feel himself disintegrating. His blood turned green due to the plasma-like properties.

  He crashed into the ground. It was clear that he was not in a good shape, to put it lightly. The amount of damage he took was enough to destroy an entire planet. It would've been fatal, and it would've killed anyone.

  Vincent was able to survive the beams, but just barely. He was breathing, but for how long? Even though he felt his bones shatter at the thought of him standing up, even if he wasn't able to call out for help. He stood up.

  Nobody beats the King of Destruction. Nobody is going to beat the King of Destruction. He doesn't need help, help needs against the King of Destruction. That's what he thought. He isn't going to die by the hands of his friends. He's going to live, and make the whole world know that the King of Destruction...

  Cannot be destroyed, for he is the destroyer himself.

  He'd slowly get up. His aura was sporadically radiating everywhere now. This was the result of a Soul reaching it's limits. It was a sight to behold. The sheer pressure would've knocked anyone out, and it would've caused the ground to shake. The Soul of Destruction was at it's breaking point.

  Heios would breathe heavily as well, every step he took was like a step of agony. He couldn't stand straight, he couldn't walk straight, but he still had enough energy to fight.

  "I expected more fight from you, Kyuga! Is that how you want to die? Don't you want a grand death!?"

  Vincent would just stare at him. His face was unchanging, and his expression was neutral. But he wasn't neutral at all. In the inside, he was dying. "... You..."

  "... You're sheep, all of you." Vincent said, putting his hands in his pockets, his face downcast. He had nothing more to say to them, nothing more to say to the people that were his friends. Even on the brink of death, he strikes a pose.

  "He's not going to last much longer." Jasper looked at him, as if he could sense the energy in him. "That's the Soul of Destruction we're talking about, after all."

  "... Fine, Heios." Vincent held out one finger, pointing it at him. He had enough energy for one last attack, and that's it. It's either do or die at this point. "One more attack. If I can't defeat you in one attack, then you win."

  Heios grinned. He knew that it was time to finish him. "So you DO like a grand death... good to know... I always knew you were the dramatic type, Kyuga."

  Vincent was charging up an attack. One final attack, with the power to end everything. He wasn't in a good state, and his body was on the brink of shutting down. But he would still persist, because he had to. If he didn't, he would die. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to move on to the next chapter in his life-

  "..."

  Heios stopped. "..."

  "... What the fuck?"

  Before Vincent could even know it, or even feel it, there was a hole in his stomach. It wasn't from a beam, or a stab. No, it was a hole that was made from a fist that had pierced his body. He didn't see it coming. He didn't even have the time to react to it. He was too focused on preparing for the final attack, that he was completely unprepared for this. The pain was so great, that it was almost numbing. Who did it?

  Aria was shocked.

  Jasper was shocked.

  Heios was shocked.

  Vincent dropped to the ground and stared at the sky. The wound wasn't fatal, but the bleeding was enough to risk certain death. His eyes widened as he looked at the perpetrator.

  His expression was one of pure shock. He was expecting to die from the hands of his friends, not from the hands of the perpetrator.

  The perpetrator...

  ... was none other than...

  ...