Chapter 426 - Defeat

Adam lifted his open right hand even higher from his head, and with much tension in his arms, he closed his fists of darkness with a noise akin to shattering glass.

Suddenly, the ball of shadows floating above in the sky began to twitch, and in the very next moment, the twitching stopped. The sound of agony and metal could not have been any clearer. The ball that had once been as smooth as could be was now a dishevelled monstrosity of spikes— like that of a sea urchin. 

'Ha… Ha… It's over!!' Adam cheered and celebrated in his mind, not trying to suppress that monstrous grin of his.

"Heh… Heh…"

Now, there was nothing but silence… His subtle laughter was the only thing entering his ears beyond his own thoughts.

That match had taken out of him more strength than he could have ever anticipated. He closed his sights and took a quick breath to ease the pain of his aching body. 

And that was when he opened his tired, blurry eyes only to see a light flickering in this dark, somber world of shadows… 

'Ah— Beautiful… Purple… Purple flickering… What could this mean…  hmhm…'

It was a subtle purple light on his still lifted right hand, one of an origin his distressed mind could not yet discern nor care about much past its extravagance. 

But that was when something happened that he did not ever anticipate at this very moment…

Abruptly, that purple light disappeared, and in its place emerged pain… Pain unlike he ever felt since birth. A sharp, stinging pain that no doubt originated from the heart. It stabbed deep, churned, twisted, burned and pulsated throughout his entire body.

*AGH—* He choked. 

His eyes of haze shot wide open, a feeling of lightheadedness and nausea took over, and he felt like he would pass out at any moment. But before he did… 

"K-KAnneee…" He blurted. 'Impossible…'

The gears that had nearly halted in his mind began to work in overdrive, reinvigorated, fighting through all the pain.

No doubt, that was the man he saw, holding his sword of ice stabbing it deep into his agonizing chest. But, how could that be!? He had died right before his eyes, impaled by several spikes that he erected from within, there was absolutely no escape! He should have been a mangled corpse! So how!?

Unless… 

Abruptly, a flash of light filled his vision, and a realization widened his face… 

It was the memory of what happened at the start of the match… No, perhaps even before… 

'THAT HANDSHAKE!!!'

That handshake of goodwill at the beginning may have not been at all what he expected. He, the man who stood above all in power had been tricked by something so elementary. 

Hazy, confused and weak in his knees he felt as if he could collapse under his own weight at any moment. Yet, he gritted his teeth and pushed on still despite this weakness. He could not allow himself to fail.

The voices in his head that normally contradicted each other now screamed in unison and told him to stop what he was doing and find a way out of this desolation. The road ahead was a tough one and right now he wasn't sure whether he was willing to walk it, let alone whether he was able, yet he went on nonetheless.

However, his attempts quickly proved futile… 

'I— I can't move!' A numbing sensation along with even greater pain met his resistance full force.

It was purple ice that spread from his heart, all the way to the rest of his body… He was being frozen alive. The fact that escape was futile quickly set in, yet the final nail in the coffin came from an outside voice.

"Farewell… you did better than I thought…"

'Ah— B-Better than I thought you say… Is that so…' Adam's expression calmed down, slowly soothing into a smirk, looking up with what little vision he has towards Moby's face. 

'His body was fine, uninjured even. Had I been underestimating how much damage he had delt this entire time? He could have killed me all this time no doubt… Yet he waited for the perfect time to reveal his trump card… He baited me all into this… Incredible…' His smile softened.

'...'

'So… This feeling… I've never felt like this... It's so utterly absolute… bitter, yet at the same time so sweet... So infuriating, yet so satisfying… So demoralizing… yet so motivating… Finally… What could it be…? "Is… Is this… Defeat...?"

Those were the last words that exited his mouth before he succumbed to the freezing cold, his vision slowly turning from crystalized purple to pitch black as his body was now nothing more than a block of ice… 

Suddenly, the dome of shadows was expelled, the light of the heavens above once again set in brightly on the nearly destroyed arena below where one man stood, his hands shielding his unaccustomed sights from the glaring sun, all eyes silently gazing at him. 

Indeed, the match had ended, yet that fact did not seem to set in well just yet in the minds of the spectators. The last most of them saw was Moby encased in a dense ball of shadows as he struggled to escape. After that, the ever-thickening darkness made it nearly impossible to see… 

There, they held their breaths. They heard the sound of screaming, and they thought it was over… Only to see a slight purple flicker beam from within the umbrae. And now, the victor had finally appeared standing before them, and the one defeated was encased frozen in a block of ice, no doubt unconscious… Still, most curious of all was the expression he wore on his face through that solid sheet of purple frost. 

It was a smile. One that, despite defeat, was oddly peaceful and at ease, like he had fully accepted his fate.

"It— It's ALL OVER!! THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR'S HEAVILY CONTESTED ARENA OF CHAMPIONS! THE MAN WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE ODDS AND PROVED HIMSELF THE STRONGEST!! MOBY KANNNEEEE!!"