CORE

Chapter 5 - Chiaroscuro

Across the city, The Boss and Justice clashed as multiple sparks of darkness and light filled the city sky as the two flew from one place to another in almost an instant.

"I'll make sure to do what The King could not," The Boss said as he clenched his fist, pulling it back as he struck Justice, in which some glimmers of light left his mouth, however, he suddenly smirked.

"If he could not do it then what makes you think you could too?" Justice said in a playful tone as he grabbed onto The Boss' arm, spinning around it as he then grabbed onto his back and put him in a chokehold, despite their difference in size, they were relatively equal.

But then The Boss responded by flying backward, leaving a trail of darkness and slamming his back into a building, but since Justice was there, he was protected while Justice took all the damage, which very clearly had some level of effect as he let go of The Boss' neck who quickly turned around.

But surprisingly, Justice was no longer there, they had flown right behind The Boss, and were charging up a light-imbued punch, and as The Boss quickly turned around their chest was struck before getting sent flying into the same building as Justice did beforehand.

"That's my take back," Justice replied as he wiped off his supposed light blood from his mouth.

Just as he was about to fly into the building to catch up to The Boss, he was unpleasantly surprised to see a large oil tank propel right toward him with a blast of darkness.

Justice quickly acted, attempting to punch it back, however, as his fist connected, he felt an opposite force strike it back to him, he in that instance realized what The Boss was attempting.

"I see your game, bossman," Justice thought, smirking as he pulled back his fist once more.

In that one singular instant, both The Boss and Justice were bare-knuckle boxing with the oil tank on opposite sides, the two desperately trying to keep it away from them as they could feel their attacks charging up the oil tank with magic.

Soon enough, the oil tank expectedly exploded into a large area of supposedly magic-amplified oil, which practically caused dents on the nearby building, but rather surprisingly, it has yet to fall.

"What amazing foundations you've made," Justice remarked as he flew back toward another building, vibrating his body at lightspeeds as well as to not unintentionally wreck the building.

"Who do you take me for?" The Boss replied as he was still floating on the opposing building.

Elsewhere, down below the city...

Hero walked across the city streets, it seemed to be empty, everyone evacuated into their homes out of fear of what was happening outside, perhaps that is for the better, no one would be caught in the crossfire.

As Hero took step by step, tired and breathing heavily, he was holding the collar of two Agents as he dragged them across the floor from behind, his last bit of magical aura he was using soon dissipating.

He was taking out too much at the same time, it was quite excessive, his memory was blurry since his body was practically on auto-pilot, but he very clearly remembered mowing through hordes of those Agents, and god knows where they kept coming from.

But it didn't matter now, Hero had taken out what was presumably all the Agents that were active, and so he let go of the two Agents he was holding and fell to the ground to take a short rest.

"I'll catch up in a while," Hero said, sighing as he turned his body over to look at the bright, orange, empty sky, raising his hand as he clenched his fist.