Rebirth of the Phoenix God

Chapter 67: Clash with the inquisitor

'What the heck'

Despite all the energy and euphory flowing along with the fire through Fen's veins, his mind remained clear enough for the young man to notice that the sword that he was holding was quite different to the weapons that he saw in a few of his visions.

If it was something that Fen noticed himself, then it wouldn't be that big of trouble. After all, one's flaws were actual flaws only once one's enemy learned about them in order to make use of the opening that they created. Sadly, the glint in the inquisitor's eyes along with his continuously increasing force with which he pushed his staff down, clearly meant that he noticed it just a swell!

"So that's the case!"

Whispering those words in a joyous tone akin to someone finding a rare herb during a random stroll through the forest, the lips of the man above Fen formed into a small smile.

"You damned heretic"

Changing the grip over the handle part of his staff, this damned man managed to force Fen to actually kneel down in order to keep the polished stone at the top of the enemy's weapon away from his body.

'Damn it!'

For some reason, all the strength from before that made Fen nearly invincible was now gone. Given the situation, any attempts at recreating this double-flow would quickly result in the enemy counter-attack. With his sword quickly reaching its limits of how much it could endure, Fen was slowly turning desperate, when his body jolted once again.

Change.

So far, Fen held the handle of his fire-sword in the classing double-grasp, with the thumbs of each of his hand pointing in the opposite way. Feeling the strange muscle memory once again taking control over his actions, the young man expected for some great manoeuvre that would instantly put him on the advantageous position. Yet, it didn't happen.

In one instant, Fen's left hand relaxed, with only the curvature between its thumb and pointing finger remaining as the support for the sword's handle. In a quick turn, phoenixian descendant's left hand reversed its grasp on the handle, with its elbow flying upwards, slamming right against the blade of his weapon.

All at once, Fen pushed his right hand up a bit, while allowing the blade of his sword to fall down along with his elbow. Supported on its entire length, Fen's fire weapon somehow managed to sustain the pressure of the enemy staff, forcing it to slide itself down the blade to Fen's left side. 

Jump!

Even though both of his feet remained on the ground, Fen felt as if the muscles in his legs tore apart due to the immense stress placed on it by this sudden move. But as bad as it sounded for him, especially in terms of prolonged conflict, it still allowed the young man to free his weapon from defending himself, instantly pushing the ball of fire that served as a pommel of his weapon directly into the inquisitor's stomach!

"Fuck!"

Clearly not expecting this outcome, the middle-aged mans eyes brightened out for a second, before a long, thin cut appeared right on both his robes and his chest.

Stutter.

Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of wild energy, Fen could only back down a few steps. In this short window of time, the inquisitor didn't dare to give him any time to recover from this surprisingly effective attack.

"It's good to know that you are only a beginner."

Putting a devious smile on his lips, the man in front of the young arcanist swung his staff with great skill, proving how vain he actually was. In the time that it took him to flex his control over this uncommon weapon, Fen managed to shake this dizzy feeling off his mind, raising his already regenerated sword back into en guarde position.

Or at least, that's what Fen though he did, as even after he stood guard awaiting the enemy attack, the tip of his fire blade didn't intrude in the young man's vision!

Lowering his sight in a burst of sudden panic, Fen realised that his sword somehow disappeared!

Unable to create it by himself, as so far the young man relied on those random appearances of the muscle and soul memory that allowed him to use the skills learned by his ancestors, the fight that seemed to be easy in the beginning, now turned into a potentially lethal situation!

'Come on I can do it!'

Motivating himself in his mind, Fen ignored the approaching enemy and focused all of his efforts at replicating the same feeling that he had when the sword was initially created. In this state of mind, all of the voices from his surroundings, all of the distractions, all of everything but the task that the young man had in mind, disappeared.

Step, step, step. 

With the sound of the sand being crushed under the heels of the approaching enemy, Fen's time was quickly running out. But his situation also continued to change. 

As hard as it was to repeat the actions that he never did before on his own, only after pushing himself to the absolute limit did Fen manage to create

A small knife.

If one were to ignore its grand appearance caused by it being made completely from the thick flames, then it would be no different from the blades that butchers would use to gut their freshly delivered meat!

'Yes!'

Just the fact that he managed to achieve something that his vision always treated as one of the greatest hurdle for the members of the phoenixian tribe, Fen almost forgot about the situation he was in. Raising his eyes along with his once again armed right hand, he realised that the inquisitor was already swinging his staff at the young man's head!

Tilting to the side, Fen felt how the sharp edges of the stone lodged at the top of the enemy weapon scrapped his cheek, causing several drops of blood to instantly cover his face.

'Wait, blood?'

Still keeping his momentum from the dodge, Fen could see how his opponent skillfully redirected the movement of his weapon, once again aiming it at the young man.

'Since it's not burning'

Forced to dodge even further to the side, the accumulated momentum of Fen's movement was akin to some pranky young master axing his knees from behind. Deprived of the support of his own legs, Fen realised that this sudden ace card that he accidentally obtained, could be held for later. Unless he valued his own life, then his current position had to be changed at all cost!

"IGNITE!"

Shouting the words to help himself to tunnel his efforts into this single task, Fen could feel the blood on his cheek heating up for a moment, before it suddenly exploded in a magnificent ball of flame!

Obviously, even though he was the one responsible for creating the explosion, its aftereffect didn't differentiate between the target and the caster. As the shockwave appeared in a kind of unfortunate spot, Fen's head was instantly jerked to the side, quickly pulling the rest of the young man's body along!

The pain in his neck was immeasurable. Feeling as if someone was attempting to rip his head apart from the rest of his body, Fen realised that even a single more explosion placed directly at this face could save the work for the inquisitor and just kill him on the spot!

'Wait, inquisitor?'

The wave of realism quickly washed the useless notion of the pain away from Fen's mind, as he raised his head to take a look around.

To say that the area turned into a burning hell, would be a gross understatement at this point.

Quickly spotting the place where this last big boom went off by a huge crater in the ground, Fen took his sweet time to locate the body of inquisitor. Sadly, contrary to his hopeful expectations, that middle-aged man was still fully conscious, even though his figure betrayed how devastated he was by the last, unexpected attack.

Suppring his entire weight on his staff despite kneeling directly on the ground, the inquisitor was panting heavily, while tracing every single movement of the young man with his hate-filled eyes.

"He is"

Raising his hand and pointing it at Fen, the middle-aged fucker attempted to put the entire machine of inquisition into motion by calling him a heretic!

Realising that once this fucker would manage to recover his breath and finish the sentence, there would be no escape, Fen managed to push all the pain and discomfort of his exhausted and wounded all over body. This opportunity was too great for him, to just willfully waste it!