The Lost Samurai

Chapter 16 - Phoenix

Inside Kenshin’s mind he managed to stand up straight despite the pain, and the skeleton was just switching his glance between glaring at Kenshin and looking at his missing fingers.

*Roar!* The loud roar almost knocked down Kenshin, the monster was now completely enraged, it couldn’t bear this human destroying his skull and now his fingers, the pain was too much and fed his anger to the highest level possible.

“I should be the one angry you i***t bones mountain! You have been draining my strength for the past years, that’s the only reason why you’re so strong now, and no matter what I try I can't really get rid of you, just make you dormant!” Kenshin really pissed off now, this thing slowly draining everything, every ounce of his power and even attacking him, and the curse was the angry one?

*Roar!*Roar!* The skeleton started roaring even louder as if it understood what Kenshin said, with his roaring purple flames started covering its body. The flames were so hot that space itself started to burn around the giant body, nothing could resist those flames, not even a bit of them, much less this absurd amount.

The skeleton jumped forward and reached Kenshin before he could react, the burnt space let this thing move at amazing speed as he could cut the distance to a fifth.

Kenshin covered his whole body in chi, the green light would blind anyone seeing this and the armor it turned into would shake Kenshin’s foes souls, sadly the skeleton didn’t have eyes or soul so it wasn’t effective at all, Kenshin charged forward for a fatal blow.

*Bam!* Kenshin and the skeleton collided and reached a stalemate, the strength those two were exerting right now would destroy everything around in kilometers if this was the real world, luckly they were just representations of Kenshin’s chi and the curse’s chi fighting inside a illusory world so the real world wasn’t damaged.

*Huff!*Huff!* Kenshin was drenched in sweat, he was too tired to keep on longer, using this level of chi manifestation to counter the skeleton directly wasn’t something he could do for a long time, but running away wasn’t an option anymore, the flames not only made his opponent absurdly lethal in long-ranged attacks but also made it too fast for him.

“Waaah! I will destroy you today!” Using even more chi Kenshin increased his own strength further and grabbed the gigantic skeleton’s body and threw it on the ground, making the skeleton stagger for a second, enough time for Kenshin to climb it.

*Bam!*Bam!*Bam!*Bam!* Kenshin used this momentaneous monstrous strength and delivered a chain of punches that resonated through the whole world, each blow turned one of the skeleton’s bones into dust and his opponent cried louder with every hit, the giant wasn’t able to react, every time it regained a bit of its senses to push Kenshin away a new punch landed and the skeleton was again rendered powerless.

“Waah! I won’t let you go now!” The punches didn’t stop and instead they used their predecessors' power to increase their weight even further, making the skeleton’s body crumble apart from their power, but Kenshin was also hurt by every punch, the flames were burning his flesh, his arms were moving only by sheer willpower but there was almost no flesh in them, and even the bones were starting to burn.

*Wack!* With the burning in his arms Kenshin couldn’t keep on at the same speed and started decreasing his fists’ speed, but the moment he came to a halt the skeleton below him mustered enough strength and kicked Kenshin, sending him flying for an enormous distance, he had lost his senses but managed to wake up mid-air and land safely before the skeleton reached him.

*Cough!*Cough!* Kenshin couldn’t stand up, he was just half seated and half on his feet, looking at the small organ parts in the blood he had just coughed, he was almost dead right now, not capable of fighting back at all, he knew his faith was drawn and his future only had death, but he wanted to reduce the skeleton’s power til the last moment, make it waste energy, and even waste his own energy so his foe wouldn’t get so much power after absorbing him.

The skeleton threw a giant blue flames ball, Kenshin felt the heat and started sweating profusely, with his last will he jumped to the left and avoided the ball, but his left leg was still heavily burnt.

Laying on the ground Kenshin just closed his eyes and waited for his death now, the skeleton started producing even more flames and a flame ray hit Kenshin like a flamethrower, but somehow he wasn’t killed, it didn’t hurt at all, the truth was it actually healed him.

Opening his eyes Kenshin saw a blue flame around him, repelling the purple flames and healing his wounds, looking around he noticed a beautiful blue bird flying towards his enemy, it was a Blue Phoenix!

“My spirit, my real spirit! You’re here to help me! Haha, now this thing won’t last a minute!” Before the curse turned his spirit into a skeleton Kenshin always had the Blue Phoenix, protector of the Blue Phoenix Kingdom, as his sword spirit, and now it was back to save him.

*Chirp!* With a loud chirp the Blue Phoenix attacked, sending an enormous wave of blue flames towards the skeleton, the purple flames around it couldn’t resist and the monster could only run with his whole body burning while it screamed in pain, if purple flames looked unsurpassed, the blue flames truly were.

All the direct descendants of the royal lineage, the throne heirs of Blue Phoenix kingdom, received training from the emperor to manifest this sword spirit, it was way stronger than any other someone could manifest, sadly the older son, the current emperor, was too weak and could barely manifest a sword spirit, so he wasn’t stronger than the really strong masters, but Kenshin, even without being able to use it he still was the strongest by far, but when he still could use the Phoenix numbers didn’t matter to him, power didn’t matter to him, no one in the world could win a fight with him, no army could dare enter his kingdom’s territory.

 *Chirp!*s***h!* Another loud chirp and the Blue Phoenix flew at enormous speed towards the skeleton, slashing his body in two and grabbing the lower half, throwing it at the upper half. With both halves together and unable to make any move the Blue Phoenix burned them together, leaving only ashes.

Suddenly the ashes turned into a black smoke that entered a cocoon in the back of this imaginary world, the cocoon absorbed the smoke and grew bigger, and even absorbed all the chi scattered around the place, growing even bigger, no matter what the Blue Phoenix tried the cocoon wouldn’t be damaged so they could only give up, at least they won today and the curse wouldn’t trouble Kenshin during some time.