Seed Of Speed

Despite knowing they were heading straight into a trap and likely everyone inside the oasis was dead, Diego could not help but feel a chill as he approached the wide-open gates. There was a very 'wrong' feeling plaguing his mind as he crossed the last tens of meters, but the sand seemed undisturbed. Rainshower lifted her head and stared at the top of the gate but said nothing. The problem with stronger cultivations is that it opens you more to the world around the cultivator, but neither could fully understand these signals they were picking up because they were both still too inexperienced.

Diego peered into the village from the gate, but there was a complete lack of people. What should have been a bustling village was now a ghost town with nothing more than a few signs that anyone had ever lived here in the first place. Laundry still hanging on the line, a child's leather ball abandoned in the road... whatever came left them with no time to flee yet left no evidence of their presence. He could feel the Bastion calling to him, but he had more important places to check first.

Giving Rainshower a nod, the couple took off towards the Hovel since it was the most likely place to find Moonwater, but before they could reach there, a feeling of dread began to consume Diego. The closer they got, the stronger it got. They stopped at the edge of the garden around the Hovel which had already started to wilt under the desert sun, but that was the feeling reached its crescendo.

Without thinking, Diego grabbed Rainshower by the waist and spun her away just before a large, crimson axe on a matching colored chain slammed into the place they had both been standing just a second before. The chain led back to the Hovel, but the owner no longer wanted to remain hidden as he dragged back his axe. Three meters tall, skin as black as night, and crimson hair, but Bako's face was still the same one he remembered, twisted by madness and rage.

::The Avatar must have sensed you and corrupted Bako's body with his power. There is no way to save him, even if you could kill the Avatar. Bako's body will only be able to contain that power for at most a day before it will be consumed::

"You're back, Ishu..." Bako said in a voice that was too loud to be a whisper, yet filled with the same kind of airiness, "if that is even your name."

Diego's eyes narrowed as he drew his spear from his storage space, without saying a word. Although Rainshower was a little confused by the last part of Bako's sentence, it could wait until they were safe; right now, she needed to worry about the enemy in front of them.

Before he picked up his axe, Bako threw a large sack towards Diego that landed a meter in front of him. When it hit the ground, the contents spilled out... the thirteen heads of their brothers. Rainshower could not help but scream at the sight of the severed heads while Diego suppressed the urge to vomit as he snarled at Bako.

"Don't feel bad for them. At least I gave them a quick death, no one else in the clan was so lucky, and I am personally going to make sure you feel all their deaths!" Bako yelled before he kicked off the ground.

Diego did not need anything else and threw himself straight at Bako. Combining {White Lightning Array} and {Shooting Star}, normally an archery technique, but Hawkeye had helped him into turning it into a spear-charge technique, turned Diego into a white light missile. Before Bako even knew what happened, the silver spear in Diego's hands had already pierced through his heart and thrown him back, so that the spear had impaled itself in the Hovel's wall.

"Was the quick enough for you, brother?" Diego spit.

Diego did not even want to touch the spear any longer and left it stuck in the wall, holding Bako upright. He turned around and started walking back to Rainshower who was shaking, crying, and staring down at the heads of Jastrab and Peyni as well as the others.

As if an alarm went off in his head, Diego rolled forward without questioning a thing and managed to dodge a swing of the chain-axe. He twisted during his roll, so that he could see as Bako stepped forward, pulling his body across the shaft of the spear and freeing himself of it with a second. The hole left behind began to close at a visible rate while Bako made a grasping motion to his chain-axe which then flew back to his hand.

"You cannot kill the retribution you deserve!" Bako said before he kicked off the ground again.

Diego pulled out another spear from his storage space and positioned to take the attack. Bako swung his axe to cleave Diego from his left shoulder to his right hip, but Diego let out a deep breath as he activated his [Speed Sight]. He stabbed out his spear into the gap between the axe hook and shaft then twisted with all of his might. It was only with the momentary assistance of the power boost from his black flames was he able to overcome Bako's increased strength and turn the direction of the swing.

Not only was he able to dodge the attack, but Diego also used the change in momentum to whip himself around to deliver a counterattack. Both his left knee and fist lit up with a golden glow as he launched [Rising Thunder Knee] and [Lightning Fist] into Bako's ribs and right elbow respectively. Diego felt the crunch of the bone under his attacks before Bako was blown away, but despite being knocked into a wall so hard that it broke, Bako stood up a moment later, laughing.

Despite his right arm hanging limply at his side, Bako laughed as he shouldered his axe and taunted, "I live only for your death! Come, let us embrace it together!"

("What the hell is wrong with this crazy family? He sounds like Catro,") Diego thought to himself.

Bako's lower, right arm began spasming uncontrollably as it started to heal, just like the hole through his heart. Since killing, or even wounding, him seemed out of the question while that power was active in him, the only option left of trapping him which was not one of Diego's expertise... He would just have to use what he had.

Diego activated his [Speed Clone] and five more Diegos split off from the main body. Each one carried a spear as Diego had had Silverflame create a total of nine for his eventual extra clones. All six of the Diego took off with [White Lightning Array] and [Shooting Star], each one pinning down either a shoulder, t.h.i.g.h, or forearm to the ground.

Two Diegos, legs cloaked in black flames, took turns stomping the different parts of Bako while the other four made a circle around him, each with their hands on the sandy ground. Although Earth was now his weakest element, since his Demi-Body cultivation had increased his Shadow affinity, it did not take too long for his spell to form.

A giant pit, over a hundred meters deep formed in the matter of seconds between the four Diegos. The two on top of Bako fell as well, but they only worried about storing away the spears then one disappeared and the other gave his brother one last look.

"Rest in peace, brother," Diego's final [Speed Clone] said before it vanished like the other.

Bako gave one final, echoing scream of rage before Diego collapsed the pit from top to bottom and retreated. He returned to Rainshower's side and knelt down next to her.

"I was wrong, Dystina. Let's go back to the sect," Diego said as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"But, but, but... my mother..." she cried, holding the pendant in her hand.

The blue moon was still intact which meant her mother was still alive... and in the hands of whatever turned Bako into that. Of course, the talisman could only save two people.

::You really are a big-hearted fool, just like Emily described::

A smile formed on his lips for a moment then disappeared the next. Diego nodded and said, "We need to go to the Bastion. That where the thing that turned Bako into that monster is, so your mother is likely there."