Dream of the Guardians I-1: Rising

Chris has been in his room for almost an hour, receiving medical treatment from the imperial wizards, although he wants to ask about Guilian, he knows that it is not the right time. He must concentrate on his next opponent, Fist of Dragon Ryuken.

The diagnosis is not very favorable, may his wounds have been completely healed, but if Chris receives enough damage they will reopen, he lost a lot of blood and is advised not to move on, his life is already in danger in his current conditions. But that's not enough to overlook what happened.

Hanna returns to her seat in the stands, what she has felt lately has been more and more intense, and she can't feel calm. She contemplates how excited the audience is forthe final round tobegin.

The preparations during the break are according to the height of the competition, the drums greet Ryuken as he walks towards the Arena. He is waiting for his next match as if it meant nothing, while in the distance a gloomy figure is seen in the hallway, Chris comes out into the light of day.

Hanna can't help but see Chris’ gaze full of determination, she is not full of anger, only conviction in reaching the goal, victory. The fight he had against Pierre taught him a lesson, anger will not be enough to win the final, he must overcome any obstacle that comes his way to rise victorious.

The audience is completely silent, the tension increases too much, Queen Alice can't help but watch the two warriors fight with only their presences, at least until she gives the signal. Barely hiding the trembling of her hand by nervousness she begins the final fight.

Chris goes straight to his opponent, kicks his upper body and is stopped with an effective block. Both have experience in martial arts, kick against kick, deflected punch and counterattack, each action is effectively stopped against each other.

With only a few seconds since the battle began, there have already been at least 30 attacks and neither of them gives up an inch of ground. Having spent a few minutes, both stop and back at the same time, they are already done with the warm-up.

Ryuken is somewhat exalted, even without powers, there have not been many people who can keep up with him. It had been a few years since he had last been able to fight someone so much.

Chris is just analyzing what happened, his times were perfect, the postures before, during and after each type of attack, everything is similar. It's too much of a coincidence that they're both at the same "level" of skill in hand-to-hand combat. It is not time to think about solving those types of doubts, so he always has to postpone things.

It's time to raise the level, Chris increases his physical strength and throws a blow of pressurized air, he plans to use the same play as with Pierre. However, Ryuken wraps his fist in flames, becoming wild and very compressed and expels them, consuming the air and leaving the effect totally null.

Chris realizes that his strategies must be improvised and never repeat things, because Ryuken has the total appearance of being analytical with the details, that he could stop the pressurized air is proof of this.

Ryuken breaks the silence between the two:

“Did Hama train you?” a question that perplexes Chris for a few moments, that name reminds him of that time when he was useless in controlling the earth. That woman who taught him how to make the mud bird, the strange woman who supported him in the past.

“Posture, attack timing, defense and counterattack, deflecting the trajectory of attacks, being fast as a hurricane and elegant as a spring breeze, is totally the style of that woman.” every word of Ryuken to describe her leaves Chris more stunned by its accuracy, “Hasn't she died yet? She never seems to age one bit.”

Ryuken speaks as if he knew her all his life, Chris can't believe he met an acquaintance of hers. A teacher who taught and supported him so much and he talks as if he holds some kind of grudge against her. Chris can't help but lose his temper.

He runs out to attack Ryuken for speaking ill of his teacher and increases his strength to the limit allowed not to kill. But Ryuken stops his angry attack, despite being a Fire adept, he has enough physical strength to continue to stop Chris’ attacks.

Incredible analytical and deductive skills, physical strength, speed, tremendous elemental power, and still not seriously fight, one of the Six Lords, Fist of Dragon Ryuken. With a direct kick to the abdomen, Chris ends up being pushed back by the force of the attack. Strength and speed combined in an effective and accurate attack. He can barely keep his breath going.

He attacked him directly at the site of his wound, making it difficult for him to recover from the blow, but he further increases his strength, enough to tighten his muscles so that the "relaxed" body is totally rigid and thus not lose stability. If losing control of his body, Chris may not move it again for a while, that is the consequence of demanding too much on the past combat.

Ryuken decides not to let him rest until he is totally defeated, and begins to attack Chris with his real strength, fighting seriously. The blows are sharp, despite blocking the attacks, Chris begins to stop feeling some parts of the body by receiving the accurate blows.

Remembering the image of Guilian badly injured while calling him, Chris fights back with his whole arm and, despite blocking him, Ryuken begins to back off. Chris' strength increases more and more as he connects with his opponent's body, causing Ryuken to end up being pushed straight to the ground.

«Fight, fight, fight. » even without saying anything, Chris’ expression shows off his determination to make his opponent suffer. That spark that ignited ended up becoming an inner hell.

«He ignored the stabbing pain of the pressure points; he is more of a beast than a man. » Ryuken is amazed by his opponent's unexpected ability as he suffers from the impact.

A direct lariat, despite not connecting with the neck, the real damage lies in the impact with the ground. Chris’ strength causes Ryuken to collide with the ground strong enough to lift dirt from the Arena.

One of the weaknesses of martial arts based on speed and precision is high-impact attacks. Because of Ryuken's incredible physical strength, Chris had to suddenly increase his own strength as he whipped him towards the ground, for an instant reaching his maximum strength without hurting his own body.

As Chris watches his opponent on the ground for a moment, he senses a disturbance in the surroundings. Hanna warns him to turn his gaze and Chris manages to react in time, he gets kicked by someone else while Ryuken was on the ground.

He defends himself from the blow, but as soon as he receives the impact the foot becomes a flash and explodes, throwing Chris away from his opponent. Despite having increased his strength throughout his body, the impact of the explosion is enough to hurt him, not to mention the heat damage of the explosion fire.

He manages to recover from the damage and understands the scene, as Ryuken rises from the ground, the smoke dissipates and the identity of the other opponent, a second Ryuken, is revealed. Chris is amazed at what is in front of him. He sees it and can't believe it.

The Ryuken of the explosion runs on the attack while the injured Ryuken is left watching alone. Chris can do no more than respond to any attack, no matter from whom he receives it. He easily evades the blow of the Ryuken from the explosion, directly attacks his body and as soon as he receives the damage that Ryuken ends up lighting up, detonating in an explosion.

That Ryuken did not defend itself much, its purpose was to receive damage to explode, or to attack with explosion on contact. As Chris recovers from the damage from the second explosion he notices that there is no longer that Ryuken, but now there are more of them around the initial Ryuken.

No doubt, Ryuken is creating clones of himself with his own elemental power. It is a technique of too advanced level to clone in detail, but there is something that does not add up, it seems as if they have their own consciousness, because they do not seem to be controlled by the original Ryuken.

Perceiving the ki, Chris avoids contact with all the Ryuken, evading all attacks, they do not seem to have as much physical strength as the original during the "warm-up". But there is something more alarming than his abilities, there are starting to be more and more clones. While evading almost automatically, he notices how clones are divided into more clones.

One is divided into two, they attack a certain number of times and each of them is divided into two, repeating the cycle. In just one minute since he began to evade the clones, from being about 3 they multiplied and became more than fifty.

Sharpening his perception of ki, Chris can notice how the clones' bodies "heat up," getting to enough activity, have twice the heat, and divide. Because the clones are splitting at an alarming rate Chris decides to blow one up and have the explosion eliminates others around him.

BOOM!!! Chris is thrown by the explosion, because at the time of attacking a clon he was without making contact with the ground, letting himself be carried away by the force of the explosion. He lands and repeats the process, but that attack did not make more than 4 clones disappear and the others do not let him catch a breath.

As the combat progresses, explosions are more frequent, Hanna can't help but feel worried about her friend and his recklessness. Even though he's fighting the clones, the original Ryuken is resting and recovering from the tremendous damage he received.

Twenty minutes after the fight began, Chris has lost count of the explosions he has received all over his face, his body is fragile and very hurt by the fire of the explosions and very exhausted. The aftermath of his fight with Pierre begins to be felt even with his muscles strained by the increase in strength.

His clothes are also shattered and begin to fall off his body, once he is left with his top uncovered it can be noticed how defined his muscles are and covered with multiple scars. That’s when Ryuken contemplates his opponent and notices something particular, Chris wears his necklace with a crystal pendant.

Ryuken is perplexed to see the pendant and begins to ask him where he got it from, but Chris does not answer, as he is too focused on staying conscious to pay attention to his questions. It is just at that moment that Chris begins to feel lighter and lighter, the pain of his wounds and the feelings he has vanishes, while Ryuken from his perspective notices how the pendant begins to emit a small light from inside.

The faint light envelops Chris’ badly wounded body, his mind as it becomes cloudy, losing notion of reality, it becomes clear by digging up something that was very deep in his being. Chris manages to visualize a man on his back carrying two ill-behaved children while noticing that next to him he is being held by the hand of a beautiful woman, from her great height he deduces that he himself is very small.

The five are walking in a field of grass gilded by daylight as a mountain rises on the horizon. Everyone eats on a picnic; everyone smiles and the woman hands Chris the pendant with great affection. He, being a very young child, is ready to bite the crystal that since that day hung from his neck and everyone laughs out loud.

Ryuken keeps trying to get answers from Chris but is surprised to see that drops are falling to the ground. Chris is crying rivers while Hanna feels something inside, the pulse is no longer instantaneous but continuous. She feels a warmth that she thought she had forgotten since she was a child, causing her to start crying too, but it doesn’t last long.

Chris is increasingly relaxed despite the atmosphere, so much so that his muscles are no longer tense from the increased strength. One of the clones rushes to attack him and Chris dodges him easily, attacking right in the abdomen with a punch, but it does not explode, it just vanishes.

Hanna is totally shocked by what happened, the clone disappeared unexploded and the original Ryuken is showing pain, he received the damage from the clone. As the light disappears from the pendant, Chris regains his senses and sets out to attack the clones.

Blow after blow, the clones disappear as if nothing, and Ryuken takes in pain every time a clone is destroyed. He doesn't understand what's going on, something like this has never happened to him, so Chris explains that he now manages to understand the mechanism of fire clones.

«I don't know what happened to me, but ki and my elemental power have been mixed. » Chris reflects as he contemplates the power emanating from his body, «One thing is clear to me, those fire clones are still tied to Ryuken, the spiritual arts don't lie about something like that. »

Ryuken is cornered, despite having recovered a little from lariat, he has received quite a bit of damage from having lost many clones. He pounces on Chris and unleashes a flare that covers the rest of the Arena, his goal is to incinerate Chris to prevent him from attacking him further.

«Had you not learned the secrets of ki you probably would have defeated me with a single attack. » Ryuken thinks as he loses sight of his target lost in the sea of flames.

However, from the flames comes an arm and holds it by the neck, Chris is unharmed from the fire:

“Combining ki with my Earth elemental power has a second application, covering my body like a thick membrane and protecting me from your fire.” Chris shouts, which leaves Hanna surprised by Chris’ solution to the fire damage.

Chris lashes out at Ryuken and starts beating him with a clean fist. As he tries to fight back, Ryuken can only notice that Chris’ strength continues to increase as time goes on, which makes him understand that his new "ability" is adapting, discovering a limit in which to stay.

Ryuken's injured body does not allow him to attack with all his strength, so he uses fire to propel his movements, while the flames on his hands and feet intensify, all with the aim of breaking Chris' protection. Blow after blow, the two of them are giving and receiving damage by the force of the impacts.

The excitement of the audience echoes further as the two fighters are fighting as equals. Hanna can't believe what she is witnessing, she realizes that they both have a smile from ear to ear as they fight, while the look they have in their eyes shows that life-filled glow.

«His blood boils from the fire of the combat, where do those two come from? » thinks Queen Alice as she sees the two men fighting with an elemental fist, «I thought that clan of warriors was extinct. »

Throughout history a pattern was repeated for certain figures who made history, men who come out of nowhere, whose fervor for combat comes to light at the moment of truth. Knights, martial artists, bandits, pirates, after much effort gathering information from those legends, a clan of warriors with superhuman capabilities came to light.

That clan is scattered throughout the world and only one lucky exceptional individual comes out once every century. But what came to be repeated the most is the end of their stories, none of them grew old, all had deaths in battle without leaving offspring. They shine brighter than anyone of their generation, only to die prematurely from their thirst for fighting.

«That that clan has appeared again, what is going to happen to this world? » Queen Alice is so immersed in her thoughts that she does not process the fight right in front of her eyes, «The world has not yet recovered from what happened 400 years ago. »

Both spirits are no longer on fire, they are now shining as bright as the Sun, the passion of battle is turning them into animals with a thirst for battle. It is then that both hit with the right fist and stop with the left hand to each other, being tied once again.

“I haven't fought like that since I faced Volt.” says Ryuken, covered in sweat and panting slightly as he was regulating his breathing.

“I sweated like this only when I trained with my teacher, only he was more powerful.” Chris replies as the two continue with a smile on their faces.

The two of them are stuck in that situation, staying connected by attack and defense at the same time. But the seconds become minutes, and they don't change, and the audience is surprised, something is not right.

The expression on Chris' face is more and more tense, as if he is resisting with every fiber of his being. Out of nowhere the ground under the two of them starts to crack and flames come out, Hanna realizes what's going on, Chris is using his elemental power to contain Ryuken's fire, and it's getting harder and harder to keep it at bay.

Chris tries to appeal to reason with Ryuken, to let go of everything, innocent people willdie, the public has done nothing to deserve that, but it doesn't work.

“That they have done nothing to deserve this? It is quite the opposite, by doing nothing they allowed injustices to happen to real innocents. Powerless humans are just blind cattle, before the Six Lords system they almost caused the extinction of the adepts. It was poetic justice that the Demon King arose because of them.” says Ryuken very seriously.

«What is he are saying? » it’s the first time Chris hears something about it, but it's not time to ask for the details, “If you plan to release it, then direct it all to me! I will receive everything for them.”

Ryuken is surprised by Chris' decision in that situation, as he wants to sacrifice himself for people he doesn't know. He refuses, but Chris decides to throw him into the skies to burst away from the crowd.

“Do you think I can't control all this fire? That I am an inexperienced Fire adept who would just burst out?” says Ryuken as the flames are released from within and begin to converge on his right hand.

Everyone contemplates the exorbitant amount of fire that is condensing just above them, it even ends up changing the color of the sky, and the brightness can be contemplated throughout the realm, the old lady Xian Tao can see it from the outskirts and feels the danger to the bones from so far away. Queen Alice can't help but worry about what's about to happen, but it's too late, it's a calamity about to fall from the sky, literally. Hanna can't help but be immersed in the figure that takes the fire, eyes, fangs, scales, horns, a fire capable of incinerating anything in the world and even the afterlife: the Fist of the Dragon.

Chris can feel how everything from that fire dragon is being directed towards him, he can feel that that fire is fueled by the same thing that destroyed his friend's ideals. A darkness beyond reason, shining freely consuming everything in its path. Being between a rock and a hard place, he begins to feel that everything connects in his being, conscience and subconscious.

The pendant of his neck begins to glow, radiating his whole body, Chris can feel how his elemental power comes to the surface, but he is not aware of what happens to him, for he has only one thing on his mind: to stop Ryuken's attack.

The only thing he gets to hear are the words of his master that he heard continuously for four long years: Fight, fight, fight. His mind is clouded, and he can only see the huge fire dragon fall on him.

Chris’ elemental power emerges as a fierce current and runs through his entire being, a current that he releases with a punch with all his strength and flies straight out towards the Fist of the Dragon, colliding in a blinding flash that shakes the entire kingdom. Hanna can feel the power that shakes her body as Queen Alice watches as Chris gives his all to fight the sky itself.

People think the two fighters are screaming as they give their all of their power, but Alice notices what's going on. Ryuken watches as Earth elemental power roars Chris’ will, making her spine shudder. A few moments that become eternal is all that lasts that clash of wills, leaving everyone disoriented by what happened and trying to know what resulted from it.

Everyone is shocked by the result, Ryuken quietly falls into the Arena while Chris is totally withered with his arm raised by the attack he launched. As everyone watches the two opponents in the arena, they are stunned by the scenery that was left, the cloudy sky above them with a huge hole through which the sunlight descends.

That day would be marked in history as Chris’ rise into the world, and the day the world witnessed a fist split the sky in two.