Red on gray. Spots of red on gray, in particular.

That’s what Seiren’s blood looked like against the barren surface of the rocky area of Nebula as Gorudora smashed him in one of the bigger rocks there, the rubble from it burying the pervert shortly. A blast of bright red fireworks disintegrated those rocks soon enough and he quickly got back on his feet, stepping closer to his opponent and wiping off the blood that had dripped from his mouth to his chin.

(Gorudora) ‘-I think that was enough for an overture of our fight, Seiren, hm?’

(Seiren) ‘-You mean you’ve sucked enough of the surrounding air to power yourself up?’

Gorudora only shrugged in response to that.

(Gorudora) ‘-If you want to blame someone for that, blame yourself. If you had gone all-out against me from the start, you might have just managed to postpone your demise a bit.’

(Seiren) ‘-I’m not as experienced as you in using a 100% deva output, fu**er. (his serious face turned into a challenging grin now) Plus, my job is to slow you down as much as possible, so taking you out too fast would defeat the purpose of my being here.’

(Gorudora) ‘-You sure that’s all there is to it? And what you’re doing now has got nothing to do with a certain accident that happened some years ago?’

The young Blackscale felt his hand started shaking the moment the Martian mentioned that, clenching it into a fist to keep his anger at bay and not give in to his enemy’s provocations.

It was indeed true that he had absolutely no intention of going all-out to the very limit of his strength during this Class Battle as his power was not meant to be used for something as trivial as putting bullies in their place. The current situation also favored him as he only needed to slow Gorudora down and make him use up some of his devas until Tokura and co. arrived to finish off the Ares Trio. Unleashing his full might just for that was completely unnecessary.

Hock’s best friend sighed and bent to make his muscles stand out more as carmine lightning bolts started amassing in large quantities behind him.

(Gorudora) ‘-I guess it’s pointless to try and stir you further at this point. I have other places to be, so I can’t afford to wait any longer.’

As the mass of very dark red electricity started taking shape, Gorudora opened his mouth, blowing out a visible light blue breath from it that went to his creation which had now became a gigantic version of himself. The only difference in terms of appearance was that this lightning giant had no clothes, no hair and the scars on his face were bigger. Big enough to intersect, leaving around a quarter of his face with the muscles and the jaw under the skin exposed.

The final touch to the bigger version of the villain was that its circular eyes as well as the inside of its partially opened mouth burst in electricity with a normal color after the breath the creator blew out spread amid the giant’s body. As that happened, Gorudora’s bigger version grew further in size and when it reached a height of about 20 meters, the shadow of its foot loomed over the ground where Seiren stood. (Gorudora) ‘-You did what you could, pervert boy. Now get out of my way.’

As the giant’s foot hit the ground and seemingly flattened its target with a tremor that shook the area and spread some carmine lightning around, five separate rays of bright red fireworks suddenly ripped that foot to pieces.

The Martian’s creation lost its balance for a moment, but its creator quickly fixed that problem by giving it a new foot, meanwhile the five rays that were connected to the mass of fireworks around Seiren starting to change in appearance.

Each of those became a dragon’s head, attached to a single dragon’s body with long necks, that body gaining arms and legs, so it could stand, matching Gorudora’s giant in height. A long tail formed after that and finally great wings appeared on the monster’s back, spread wide. The young Blackscale remained within the chest of his creation, looking as confident as ever as his hydra was complete and announced its arrival to the world with a mighty roar coming from all its heads.

For the first time since the start of their battle the carmine bolt’s expression changed. Although it wasn’t too big, he definitely had a smile on his face now.

(Gorudora) ‘-That does look marvelous, Blackscale, I’m not gonna lie. So you finally decided to get serious, then?’

(Seiren) ‘-I was just waiting until my body got used to this output enough to get the party started!! Time for some counter-bullying to avenge all the people you’ve hurt in and outside of Sunbird!!!’

A huge very dark red lightning bolt fell from the sky, sucking Gorudora’s giant inside it so he could be teleported right above the five-headed dragon, uniting his arms in a single very long and wide lightning blade to split the creature’s central head in half. Four more bolts with equal size to the one used for the teleportation were sent down to hit the other four heads at the same time, each of those heads catching the bolts between their jaws to the Martian’s surprise.

Those attacks were blasted into electric charges while the central head blew out a massive explosive roar at the giant, managing to cut it in half, but his arms returning to their normal form after that. The necks of the four other heads quickly wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles then, immobilizing him, so the hydra’s main head could use another roar with an even greater destructive force. Gorudora’s creation countered that with a point-black range carmine electric roar that was strong enough to blast the skin of half his face off and reveal the skull underneath.

The two attacks canceled each other out in a glorious flash of some of the brightest and the darkest hues of red at the same time that pushed both combatants some distance away. Even though his hydra protected him from any direct damage, Seiren was still temporarily blinded by the clash of roars.

As the Martian had been standing outside the body of his giant fighting machine, he had managed to go around the five-headed dragon during the last exchange between the monsters, forming a lightning arrow around him with a very sharp point. The back of the hydra was pierced by it, Seiren quickly turning his attention to his second attacker while the first one had already jumped back at him.

(Gorudora) ‘-Can’t you even exit the creature you’ve created?! You really are a rookie, Seiren!!!’

The hydra’s tail whipped Gorudora away as two of the heads sent explosive breaths at him, the other three heads using the same type of attack against the coming giant. While the creator was crushed aside, his creation managed to dodge one of the roars, the other two not being sufficient to destroy him before he could smash his fist in the central head’s jaw.

The whole five-headed dragon was shook by that hit, but quickly managed to regain its footing, making a fast turn to cut the enemy monster’s body in half horizontally with the sharp edges of its wings, that attack being blocked by a lightning shield.

Seiren thought about what Gorudora was planning based on his abilities while that happened.

He had a carmine lightning deva and an air eater deva, the second one allowing him to suck out the surrounding air to empower himself and deprive his enemies of air when they’re close enough.

His signature tactic was to use a giant like the one he had currently made and empower it with all the air he’s sucked after having weakened his opponent, the young Blackscale having seen many fall prey to this strategy.

The usage of his hydra made the initial amount of air the Martian had sucked as fuel insufficient and ensured Seiren would be safe from losing more air while within the chest of his five-headed dragon. From the looks of it, Gorudora had decided to use a different approach that entailed going around and sucking more air from the surrounding environment while his giant battled the hydra. Eventually he was going to find an opening to transfer the sucked air in his creation to further empower it. Thus, it was essential to now allow the carmine bolt and his bigger version to come in direct contact.

The easiest way to do that was to take out the giant that seemed to have already depleted most of the air supply it had been given earlier while he himself could still maintain the integrity of his hydra. A barrage of huge carmine bolts fell from the sky while the pervert was going over his strategy in his mind, his pet sending streams of bright red fireworks to meet them and a five-headed roar at the giant himself. The winged reptile moved closer to its main target and had finally reached him when the roars were destroyed by a strong and wide-range electric pulse, wrapping its tail around the dark red giant’s throat to choke him or possibly rip off his head.

That’s when the bolts in the sky broke through the streams of fireworks, turning out Gorudora had hid himself in one of those bolts, piercing straight through the hydra’s central head and going further through its body until it reached Seiren. Another blast of lightning threw him beyond his totem manifestation, which immediately started crumbling, meanwhile the enemy’s bigger version being broken apart on his command. The electricity left from him was combined with the lightning in the sky to form a carmine-colored storm that covered the whole rocky area of Nebula while the villain leaned closer to his opponent’s face.

After taking him out of the hydra and crushing him in the ground, he had turned his leg in a lightning drill, now having pierced the young Blackscale’s abdomen with that drill, blood splattering from the wound on both the victor and the loser.

(Gorudora) ‘-Trying to keep me separate from my giant, were you? Unfortunately for you, that’s not the only tool I have at my disposal to crush you. Rather, I’ll let this storm you see around you put an end to your miserable life soon enough.’

The shock of the pain in his stomach was great, but hearing his opponent’s words was much more shocking to Seiren.

(Seiren) ‘-Don’t you think you’re taking things a bit far, Gorudora? This is just a Class Battle!’

(Gorudora) ‘-You still believe that?’

(Seiren) ‘-What are you …’

He took out his leg from the golden-haired teenager’s wound and returned it to its normal appearance, turning his back on him and walking aside as carmine bolts hit Seiren’s body from different directions now. It felt as if every part of him was on fire every time a bolt hit him, seeing the blood his hands were covered in from trying to keep pressure on the hole in his abdomen, realizing this was more than bullying.  Gorudora was really trying to kill him. On purpose. Despite the fact such things were forbidden in a Class Battle.

(Gorudora) ‘-Your class ends today, Seiren. The Summerbolts end today. The mistake you people made was thinking you’re dealing with bullies. We’re killers on a mission.’

The more the pain increased for him, the clearer Seiren saw things. If they were after his whole class, then Hikaru was marked for death as well. And if they wanted to annihilate all Summerbolts, then there was someone else very close to him they were going to target. Yuki.

Gritting his teeth through the torture of the bolts, he managed to rip the sleeve covering most of his left arm. The skin underneath it, a large portion of which was black in color, was revealed and with it came a flood of memories, more pain and some hesitation.

That lasted a second before he bit on that arm’s biceps as hard as he could. He bit it so hard that his eyes were filled with tears from the new set of painful impulses coursing through that arm now. What coursed through it along with the pain was heat. Until fireworks came out of his arm’s black area, but different than the usual ones. These ones combined red, orange and yellow hues and seemed almost like a fire. Reddish cracks had formed on the black of his left arm now, the stocking on the lower half of the pervert’s right leg starting to smoke and fall apart at the same time. When the last of the piece of fabric was gone, it was revealed that most of the skin of that leg that was covered was also black, now having orange cracks on it.

Hydra heads started forming around while he cauterized the wound in this stomach, the heads connecting to bodies and ripping apart the carmine lightning storm until there was nothing left of it. The moment Gorudora turned around to see what the reason for this change of scenery was, one vermillion, one tangerine and one flaming firework hydra stood in front of him. The man who had created the winged serpent trinity teleported in front of his opponent then to crush a fist full of vengeance in his stomach with mad fury in his eyes.

(Seiren) ‘-Your mission won’t succeed as long as I’m alive!!!’

That fist blasted the Martian over ten meters back, the three hydras teleporting there at once to stomp on him at the same time. The moment they moved their feet from the area stomped by them, came the simultaneous roar of 15 heads, Seiren teleporting above the further destroyed terrain by that attack and falling right down.

A giant arm made of carmine lightning came from the smoke that had risen, trying to grab the young Blackscale when another set of roars from the hydra trio incinerated that arm, the trinity’s creator landing atop his opponent. He slammed his skull against the ground with a knee to the jaw that caused a burst of tangerine fireworks, its volume being much bigger compared to the vermillion-colored blasts. Then he started roaring and pummeling the villain’s face with his fists, one enveloped in bright red fireworks and the other – in blazing fireworks, spraying his blood around.

It had been quite a while since Seiren had broken the black seal on his arm and leg. Years. He had never been able to utilize it as efficiently as in the present, though, as he had never broken it at a 100% output. And as he realized, the more he could use of that forbidden power, the more he was consumed by the lust for destruction that came along with it.

Gorudora collapsing into a bunch of electric charges took his adversary out of his trance, turning out he had switched with a clone, probably after the hydras had tried to stomp him. But what had the giant-maker been up to since replacing himself a copy?   

The answer was simple: he was sucking out air from all around to power himself up. And that sucked-up air was put to use when he infused it with a dark red ministorm that came out of his mouth after revealing himself nearby. That infusion caused the storm to split into dozens of giant versions of its creator, swarming on the hydra trio around the pervert.

(Gorudora) ‘-Now that’s something I didn’t see coming. You have more than one deva? Shouldn’t have been holding out on me all this time, Blackscale. (the giants and the hydras clashed, Seiren himself having to take on quite a few of the villain’s creations) I guess you’re a bigger threat than I took you for, so it’s better to not take any chances and kill you on the spot. Ulura won’t mind if one of you gets killed before the order is given, I think.’

The golden-haired teenager didn’t have time to respond to either the question or the statements Gorudora made with the trouble he was in, sending himself above ground to dodge the fists of three giants with a three-colored firework burst. The kick of a fourth one reached him then, sending him some distance away through the rocks that caused his back to get torn in many places, a trail of blood being left in his wake.

The giant-maker was stepping closer and closer to him with an unnerving calmness, Seiren seeing how his hydras were ripped to pieces by the remaining giants.

This Martian was one irritatingly strong opponent for the young Blackscale. He could hold his own against him even after the black seal was broken – something which had never happened before. Of course, even now the Earthling was still holding back because he was afraid of his power and what it would bring upon him. The circumstances were extreme however, and that called for extreme measures. The most extreme ones. If he were to protect his family, Seiren needed to let it all go and allow himself to be consumed by the hunger, focusing all of that hunger on one target – Gorudora.

And so he did.

The way he saw the world suddenly changed, everything becoming a mixture of black and red. The sky was black, the rocks around – red, his fireworks combining both colors as did his enemy’s giants. Gorudora himself was only red, upon looking at his arms, the hydra master seeing they were only black. And it was now his purpose to cover everything he saw in black.

He blasted both the ground beneath his feet and the skies above in extraordinarily huge amounts of all versions of his deva, gigantic hydra heads forming from those fireworks. Some of the heads ate the bigger versions of the Martian he was facing whole, including the quarter that had pinned Seiren down, the carmine member of the Ares Trio teleporting right in front of him then and unleashing his bolts. Those bolts twisted in a strange snake-like manner as they went around piercing the giant hydra heads, something else coming from the masses of fireworks in response.

Very long explosive hydra tails appeared in some places and huge hydra wings in others, countering the twisting dark red lightning as the creators of both attacks clashed head-on. The two combatants pummeled the other as rough as possible, Seiren seeming to actually savor every ounce of pain he felt, which shocked Gorudora, that shock providing the opportunity to counterattack.

First came a head-butt and while the Martian was still reeling from it, his opponent had pulled him closer to himself with a grin as terrifying as the giant-maker had ever seen. The proof of this terror was how frightened his face looked at the moment.

(Seiren) ‘-So you can make a face like that, too, huh?’

(Gorudora) ‘-What are you going to do?!’

(Seiren) ‘-BATHE IN GLORIOUS DESTRUCTION!!!!!’

The carmine bolts and the giants all around were consumed by the fireworks, the next thing that happened being that the formless mass of the pervert’s deva changed to a hydra the size of pretty much all of Nebula’s rocky area. That hydra wrapped its wings and tails around itself, curdling up in a ball that covered the surrounding space with the Earthling and the Martian being at the center of the ball.

Finally, the ball exploded and with that blast everything was made black as Seiren had intended.