Villain's Rising

"Ho! You can speak in this form?!" Kale clapped both his hands together and spoke with stars in his eyes, "Good, now I'll understand what you're saying while you beg for mercy!"

Saying that, Kale willed strength into his legs and instantly leaped at the giant dragon in front of him.

Clenching his fists, Kale pulled back his arm. Intending to land a destructive punch on the black dragon.

Unfortunately for him, Sam wasn't going to let him do as he wished.

The black dragon opened his gigantic maw and unleashed a devastating flamethrower of brilliantly burning blue flames on the blond-haired man.

"Arghhh!" Baring his teeth and enduring the pain, Kale conjured an energy barrier in front of him.

Oddly enough, his energy barrier didn't break. Sam could only imagine how strong that barrier ability would be.

But even then, the destructive force of the fire breath pushed Kale back and slammed him onto the ground.

Sam, of course, didn't stop breathing fire for as long as he could.

When he finally felt his lungs empty of air to breathe fire, he lifted his giant claw and folded it into a fist.

-THWAAAM!

Like a meteor, he crashed his fist on Kale, shattering his energy barrier and thrashing him down on the ground.

But even after that, Kale wasn't dead. He was still breathing!

"Just die already," Sam muttered and sucked in a long deep breath, filling his lungs full with a batch of fresh air.

But he didn't use the dragon's breath instantly. Instead, he used his claws and grabbed Kale before he started to furiously flap his wings.

Thunder roared with every flap of his giant wings and the black dragon took off in the sky, still grabbing Kale in his claw.

Sam couldn't help but compare his size to the giant pillar of light that stood tall in the desert of white sand. He looked like a dwarf in comparison to the Tree Of Life.

Even though this wasn't his full size, Sam still couldn't believe just how massively big this light tree was!

Taking his mind off that and setting his sight straight, Sam shook his head. His first priority was to defeat Kale. After that, he would take all the time to admire this Tree Of Life.

So after reaching about 1300 ft. Sam halted his ascension and pulled back his giant draconic hand.

With every ounce of strength that he could've mustered within his, Sam pitched Kale, throwing him down on the ground.

-Thwoooom!

The sound barrier broke and Kale descended from the sky after being thrown by the black dragon. But the assault didn't stop there.

Opening his colossus jaw, the black dragon spit out a sea of blue flames at the falling figure of the blond man.

-KABOOOOM

The force of the fall that even broke the sound barrier, coupled with the destructive sea of endless blue flames, created a huge explosion at the point of impact when Kale's body met the ground.

After a few minutes, when the black dragon stopped breathing fire, the dust started to settle.

In the epicenter of a huge crater, there lay a blond man with severe burns visible all over his body.

However….

"Hahahaha! Ahahahahaha!"

Instead of despairing, convulsing, or wincing in pain, the man was laughing.

He was laughing as if the black dragon flying above his head possessed no threat to him.

"The fuck is wrong with you?!" The black dragon spoke.

Even Sam was confused.

But what confused him more than Kale's erratic behavior was the fact that he acquired no mortal injury even after all the abuse he took.

Sam hit him with a dragon's breath, punched him a couple of times, and threw him from the sky while breathing fire on him, yet even after all that, the blond-haired man only sustained a few burn marks.

That's it?!

Even Sam had to admit it. This guy was strong. Not as strong as Starsuper, but even stronger.

Well, that was to be expected since Kale, in his era, took down two Willburns.

And he did that without possessing the dragons, unlike Sam, who, even after acquiring the dragon's strength, nearly died at the hands of Starsuper.

If Kale had the strength of dragons back then, he would have succeeded!

So one thing was clear, Sam couldn't underestimate him.

"Oh, don't mind me," stopping his erratic laughter, Kale stood up. "I'm just enjoying my first battle after so long! But you know what? It's time to get serious."

As soon as Kale said those words, Sam stopped flapping his wings and dived down head first toward him.

He had no intention of letting Kale take the lead from him. So he decided to approach him first himself.

But unbeknownst to him, the first Progenitor was ready for it.

-Katz! -Katz!

Suddenly, several deep cuts appeared all over Kale's body, and his blood started flooding out.

That blood then somehow started moving as if it had a mind of its own and proceeded to wrap itself around Kale's body like clothing sheets.

Layer by layer, the sheets of blood were stacked, and in no time, Kale's whole figure was clad in armor made purely of blood.

'Fuck!' Sam yelled in his mind. He couldn't reach him in time.

In myths of the Dark Ages, the story's villain, Kale won Godhand, is called many names.

The Destroyer Of Peace, the Progenitor Of Demons, Kale Dé Flazer, the King Of Doom, the Leader of Minions, and much more.

However, one name that used to strike fear in the hearts of even the bravest ones was the Blood Knight.

The Blood Knight was one of the many nicknames given to the Progenitor due to his one of many abilities to manipulate blood.

Now, normally that wouldn't have been a problem for Sam with his uselessly large dragon body. But if the legends he heard about this man held even a little bit of validity, then Sam was in deep trouble.

You see, Kale's blood was different. It is said that a drop of his blood could kill a million people. It was that poisonous.

What's more, is that it can cause decay on touch. Meaning if you come in contact with his blood, your body would start to decay.

'Hell nah!' Sam screamed in his mind.

He wasn't going to take a risk. So he decided to attack from afar from his Breath Of Destruction.

-Swooosh!

'Huh?!'

But before he could use Dragonfire, a set of crimson wings appeared on Kale's back, and with a flap of those, his body disappeared, leaving behind a trail of red line.

In a flash, the Blood Knight suddenly reappeared right behind Sam.

'Fuck!' Sam cursed out in his mind, feeling the man's presence right behind him.

Unfortunately, his body was too massive for him to react to it quickly enough.

"Now, shall we end this?" Kale spoke from behind a helmet of blood. He then quickly raised his hands and pointed his open palms at Sam's giant dragon back.

As if waiting for that cue, several hundred tendrils of blood shot out from Kale's blood armor and struck the black dragon's body.

Although the crimson blood tendrils couldn't pierce the dragon's scales, Sam's body started decaying at an alarming rate.

Before his regeneration could even kick in, almost all of his body turned to clumps of black ash that fell to the ground.

On the surface, it would seem like Sam had died, but Kale knew better than anyone that this was not it.

Sam would always have a failsafe plan in mind. And he would have another failsafe ready in case the first one fails.

Between the clumps of black ash that were falling down to the ground, Kale's sharp eyes spotted Sam's body, back in his human form, falling amidst it.

Right before his whole dragon body could decay, Sam turned back to his human form.

"Ha!" Kale chortled and quickly shot at him like an arrow.

Appearing right in front of him, Kale grabbed him by the neck and crashed down on the surface, slamming Sam onto the floor of white sand.

"Khaaa!" Sam felt every bit of air escaping his lungs. His vision blacked out and he felt a bunch of his bones making a cracking sound.

He couldn't even feel half his body by now.

Normally, Sam would've turned off pain receptors right before the collision would've happened, but since [Biology Manipulation] was not working here, he felt the full force of that last blow.

Not only that, but since he had no other regeneration ability, his body wasn't healing either.

In simple words, this was his loss.

Stepping a foot on his chest, Kale, still clad in the crimson armor of blood, spoke

"Good game, well played, Sam. Out of all the opponents I've fought in my life, you were the fourth one that pushed me into using my strongest ability. Well, that's to be expected from the boy who pitched the world into dark nights by destroying the moon.

"Rejoice, for I, Kale won Godhand, the Progenitor, honor you with the title of the Prince Of Heaven's Fall for your valiant efforts up until now! And rejoice for you shall be granted death by my hands!"