Gilded Ashes-Chapter 277: Thumbs Up

Raizen’s blades flickered again.

Gold light tried to rise along the edges, tried to crawl up the metal like it used to...And then it faded out, like someone pinched the spark between two fingers.

And the Nyxes kept coming. They moved through rain and fog – refusing to stay still. A few of them still burned with faint gilded residue from Enya’s slaughter, but the rest looked mostly untouched. And hungrier than before

And Kenzo stood between them and Raizen like he actually wanted to do something about it. He had Enya thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. One hand kept her steady by the back of her chestplate. The other held his hammer, heavy enough that Raizen still didn’t understand how it could be held with one hand.

Kenzo’s smile didn’t match the battlefield.

"Hah!" he said, loud enough to cut through the battle cries and the snapping of vines. "Told you babysitting a weapon ain’t easy!"

Raizen didn’t laugh.

He tried to move - to dash, to get the Nyxes off them, to do anything - and the same invisible force squeezed down on him again. It wasn’t pain, exactly. It felt more like pressure. Like his Eon got shoved back into his body every time. His blades gave one more weak flash and went dull.

Raizen’s jaw tightened. "Kenzo – what is happen-?"

Kenzo looked at him like he was enjoying the moment. Not mocking, just... Entertained.

Raizen hated that he couldn’t tell which one made it worse.

"You’re really trying, huh?" Kenzo said, biting his lip like he fought a laugh. "Look at you. Serious face and everything."

"Kenzo" Raizen repeated, sharper. "I’m dead serious. I can’t use my Eon."

Kenzo finally turned his head a little, eyes sliding to Raizen’s blades. Then to Raizen’s hands. Then back to Raizen’s face.

"Oh" He said, like it was very obvious. "That..."

He jerked his chin at the space between them. "Don’t stand so close."

Raizen stared. "What?"

Kenzo shrugged. Rain ran off his hair and down his cheek. He didn’t even blink. "I pull it in" he said. "Eon. Yours too, if you’re near."

Raizen’s breath caught. "Wha- You... Pull it in?"

Kenzo lifted his hammer slightly. The air around him suddenly felt heavier. Raizen didn’t know if that was real or if his body just wanted an explanation, but the sensation was there - pressure, weight, a slow, quiet squeeze.

"It makes me tougher" Kenzo said. "Reinforces everything with even more Eon! It’s crazy!"

Raizen looked down at his own hands.

So that was it.

Kenzo didn’t need flashy attacks. He didn’t need to throw light around. He didn’t need to be clever with shapes or tricks.

He just turned other people’s power into his own strength. And he stood there smiling while Raizen struggled inside the effect.

Raizen swallowed. "You’re doing it on purpose."

Kenzo’s grin widened. "I always do it!"

Another Nyx crawled over a broken root, closer. Its head was weird, long, like a weird snout. Too long. Kenzo didn’t move.

Raizen forced his legs to shift anyway, stepping half a pace back. It didn’t help much. The pressure still clung to him.

Kenzo watched him try and try, like it was a game. Then, finally, he sighed like he got bored. He lifted his empty hand and closed his fist.

The pressure vanished so suddenly that Raizen almost stumbled. It felt like he took off a huge weight off of him. Like the air itself sighed in relief.

Gold light snapped back along Raizen’s blades in one powerful pulse, bright enough to make the wet fog glow around him. His muscles loosened. His skin stopped prickling with that suffocating weight.

Raizen sucked in a breath and set his stance.

Kenzo tilted his head, still smiling. "There. Happy?"

Raizen didn’t answer. He didn’t have time, Nyxes surged forward again, sensing motion, sensing opportunity. Their bodies shifted as they ran - ribs formed and dissolved, spines tried to exist, limbs thickened like muscles. Up close they looked less like shadows and more like something really struggling to be alive.

Raizen’s eyes narrowed.

"Time I do something useful too" he muttered.

Then he dashed. Not into the pack. But away, straight toward the nearest thick tree rising out of the ground like a tower.

Raizen hit the trunk and ran up it, boots slamming wet bark, Eon flaring beneath his feet to keep him from slipping. His ribs screamed immediately, like they didn’t care that the fight needed him, and he just got his power back.

He forced it anyway. One step. Two. Three. Fog and rain blurred. Battle cries turned distant.

He reached a branch, pushed off, and kept climbing. The higher he went, the more the wind bit through wet fabric, and the more he felt how much he missed this kind of intensity. He hadn’t pushed his Eon for quite some time. His muscles remembered the sensation, but they weren’t happy about it.

He reached the crown, dug his foot into a notch, and launched himself above the Nyx pack in one clean leap.

For a split second, he floated. Above dark bodies. Above curved teeth. Above clawed hands that reached up.

Raizen pulled his right blade free midair, gold flaring so bright it painted the rain in thin, warm streaks.

Then he kicked tht blade down. Not a throw. A downward drive, like he was hammering a spike into the ground. The blade hit the ground point-first.

And the impact didn’t explode like fire. It snapped. A hard pulse ripped through the wet ground like a shockwave through glass. Nyxes shuddered.

Some froze for half a heartbeat, bodies tightening like their shadows forgot how to move. Others jerked and swayed, disoriented, their "bones" inside their shapes glitching into wrong angles.

Raizen used the moment.

He cut a hanging vine with his other blade as he fell, caught the swing, and let it pull his body into a wide swing. The motion felt familiar, almost comforting. Not like his prototype, but close enough.

His boots hit wet earth. He ripped his planted blade from the ground in one sharp motion, gold flaring again, and started cutting.

Left. Right. Low. High.

Everywhere, but not wild. Precise. Every slash aimed for stability points - neck shapes, limb joints, the places where their bodies tried to pretend they had structure. Nyxes didn’t bleed, but they tore apart in rippling chunks, dark matter breaking into drifting gilded ash that glowed faintly before fading.

Up close, Raizen saw it clearly. They weren’t random at all. They really were imitated animals. A ribcage that wasn’t quite accurate but wanted to be. A spine line that flickered in and out. Jaws that formed teeth the way a memory formed a dream.

It made his stomach twist.

A Nyx lunged. Raizen ducked, rose, and drove his blade through its head shape. The Nyx broke apart like wet paper. He pivoted toward the next one.

And then he felt it. Behind him.

A pressure that didn’t belong to fog or rain.

Raizen didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He just leaned back as far as his body allowed, almost bending into a fall.

A dark projectile tore past his face so close he felt the air ripple. It didn’t hiss. It didn’t glow.

It looked like Nyx itself.

A chunk of condensed darkness fired with intent.

It slammed into bushes behind him and exploded, ripping leaves into a black misty burst. The shock punched rain outward in a ring.

Raizen’s heart kicked. He snapped his eyes toward the source.

There.

The bigger Nyx stood a little behind the pack, body thicker, calmer. One arm was hardened, dense, shaped like a cannon more than a limb. That arm lifted again.

Raizen dashed, gold streaking across the mud. He got in close and slashed the blasting arm clean off.

The Nyx didn’t even flinch. It just shifted.

Raizen didn’t stop. He cut its leg next, aiming to drop it before it could adapt.

The Nyx fell - and changed mid-fall.

Its remaining leg thickened and hardened just like the arm did. The darkness compressed, reshaped, and in the time it took Raizen to inhale, the Nyx had a second cannon.

Raizen’s eyes widened.

It was too fast. The Nyx fired.

Raizen crossed both blades in front of him and caught the projectile on the gold-lit edges. For a split second, it blocked.

Then the impact hit like a wall.

Raizen crashed through the air and skidded across mud, landing hard on his back. The breath left his lungs in one brutal shove, pain flaring in his ribs again, sharp enough to make his vision dim.

He couldn’t keep parrying those. But he couldn’t keep dodging forever either. Raizen sucked air in, forcing his brain to work through the pain.

Angle. Distance. Timing. Weak points.

He needed something decisive. He pushed up on one elbow.

The Nyx lifted its cannon-leg again.

Raizen’s blades flared, ready to dash -

A sharp sound cut through the rain. Like the air itself was tearing apart.

Raizen’s head snapped sideways. Kenzo’s hammer spun through the fog like a meteor. Raw mass moving with impossible speed.

It hit the blasting Nyx square in the head.

There wasn’t even a clean explosion.

There was a violent, ugly burst of darkness and ash, like the Nyx didn’t get a chance to understand it died. The hammer kept going another meter, slammed into the ground, and stuck there like it belonged, golden particles still drifting off it.

Raizen lay there, stunned, rain dripping down his face. Then he turned his head. Kenzo stood where he’d been before, still holding Enya on his shoulder like her weight didn’t exist. His posture stayed relaxed. His eyes stayed bright.

Raizen stared at him for a second, chest still heaving, ribs still burning, blades still flickering.

Kenzo lifted one hand, and gave Raizen...

...Thumbs up.