The heat that Arthur felt was immediate, that even from a distance it was still present on his body. The youth, Pyro, rushed forward, his flames seeming to act like rockets, before landing a critical strike directly to Arthur's cheekbone, launching a burning explosion point blank.
The resulting boom echoed through the building, as Arthur crashed into the cement floor and cracked it with his head, bouncing five feet up before having a kick delivered to his side upwards, sending him up to the ceiling and slamming into that.
It ended when Arthur fell to the ground, using his elbow and arm to not hit his head any harder. Arthur felt burning pain on his face, as he held his hand up to the burning area, tensing up and wincing in pain when he was given the impression his skin had been burnt off.
Arthur looked at his fingertips, seeing his own blood present there. Arthur got up, backing away and looking at the boy with a stare fueled by caution.
"How's that for a fuckin' punch?! I heard from my new family that ya got the title of 'The Dragon' when facing off against some werefucker, ain't that right? Hah! Once I beat y'er ass, nah, once I kill ya, I'll be able to call myself a Dragonslayer! Ain't that a sweet fuckin' name for a sweet fuckin' MC?!"
This might have been obvious, but this boy, "Pyro," truly did believe himself to be the main character.
A youth in a story, finding out he was actually part of a family of Fire Dragons, and had extraordinary talent among that family, he did definitely have the makings of a main character.
To him, Arthur was literally a beginner fight, some black sheep in the world who would be a jobber, meant to show off how cool the main character was. In addition, Chad could be a potential final boss as "the strongest" and a Dragon of Death.
Arthur was about to heal his wound, when he put his palm directly into his face, taking up a good amount of blood and forming some brass knuckles.
Would a knife probably be a better idea? Yes. However, Arthur had the urge to—
'I'm gonna beat this little bastard into the ground.'
Such was his intention.
Arthur healed his wound after making the brass knuckles, clicking his tongue. The burns really did hurt, as anyone who's even been burned before would testify.
Arthur too was losing himself a bit in the hype of the music, and the situation at hand. The teenager was actually kinda tall for his age, standing at 5 foot 7.
'Nah. If I used a knife, I might actually kill the kid. Brass knuckles won't kill him… probably.'
Pyro rushed him down once more, but Arthur, actually willing to fight this time, was able to evade his strike, and countered with a punch of his own, launching a straight right to the kid's eyebrows.
The impact caused a tear in his skin, and the boy backed up, wincing in pain before Arthur threw a bad jab to Pyro's face. His form was wobbly, as his feet were crossed and it was very light, mostly relying on his arm rather than anything else.
He'd only just learned the form a couple days ago, didn't practice it properly for too long, and was now having to use it in a fight where his mind was a bit off, so this was perhaps the most logical conclusion.
"You motherfucker! That hurts, bitch!" Pyro yelled, as the blood began to seep into his left eye. Arthur, noticing that, leapt off the ground with his left foot, brushing to his right and Pyro's left, making it a bit harder to see the incoming strike.
Arthur dug his feet into the ground, reeling his fist back and launched it forward, properly rotating his hips for a mean right hook. However, this was countered when red and yellow flames were expelled from Pyro's left side, coating Arthur in his entirety.
Arthur's attack wasn't halted due to the delay in his brain processing the flames and his body continuing the strike, but it was weakened a fair amount.
The attack slammed into Pyro's skull from the side, not hitting his temple but rather the top left half of his head near the back. That amount of force, focused on the points of the weapon, delivered a strike which tore apart the flesh and ravaged the bone, giving a thick crunching noise.
The body was flung across the construction site, slamming into a pillar, halting the body's momentum. The building shook from force, leaving dust to fall down a bit, and Arthur flailed his limbs around, having been caught on fire.
He stopped, dropped, and rolled, taking his clothes off and putting the fire on his hair out, patting himself down and healing to extinguish the flames.
Arthur was now naked, and so he took his clothes, waving them around and smacking them against the floor to put out the fire before clothing himself once more.
He took a look over, seeing Pyro covered in flames and twitching.
'Did I kill him…?'
It was a very good question.
Pyro sprung forth, falling to his knees and extinguishing his flames, gagging as leaks of vomit left the corners of his mouth.
He was on his hands and knees, gagging quite disgustingly before vomiting up whatever he might have had for lunch or perhaps early dinner. It was then that he took deep breaths as the blood rolled down the side of his head and pooled onto the ground.
"Mm… aerlgrh, ack, hk, unn, ah…"
Arthur watched over, hesitant to follow through. Then, Pyro healed, his eyes losing their droopiness as he got up and held the side of his head.
"OW! THAT FUCKING HURT YOU BITCH! FUCKING COCKSUCKER, I'LL SCORCH YA TO ASHES!!" He roared, flames igniting once more before being launched at Arthur from afar. Arthur covered his head and ducked like he was playing dodgeball, as the fire hit the floor behind him.
Arthur tried to run, but going from a complete crouch to a sprint didn't work in his favor, as he got unlucky and fell. The flames which hit behind him then circled, being controlled and scorching his back.
Roaring in pain once more, he got up and rushed the youth down. The flames on his back were extinguished and the kid formed a circle of fire, as if like a shield, grabbing ahold of it as it rotated rapidly, before being chucked at Arthur's head.
An uncouth duck lowered his head to evade that, and thereby restored his luck, as if he hadn't, his brain would've been cut off from his head.
Arthur pressed forward, reaching Pyro and tried a theory he had. He broke apart the brass knuckles, which shattered like cups or dinner plates, before being turned into a knife.
'SO I CAN DO IT!'
It was an idea he thought up while seeing Pyro writhe in brain damage, and something he was quite excited about. So long as he made contact with the blood weapon, he could change its form and consistently transfigure it.
He jammed the blade into the gut of the teenager, a move which lifted up his body as Arthur kept ahold of him, lifting him up into the air. The boy yelled in pain, looking down at the knife with genuine terror.
For a moment, he forgot he was a dragon, seeing that he was just stabbed through the stomach. Arthur ripped the blade out, and as Pyro began to fall down to the floor. Looming over, Arthur wound up his leg and sent a violent kick to his chest.
Blown away by the impact, the teen was sent hurling out of the building.
For now, the problem was dealt with, and Arthur looked down at the bloody knife and all the blood that'd been left behind.
"DAMNNN!! That was pretty cool broski! I'm pretty sure he's still alive and kicking, so don't get too happy!" Chad yelled, turning off the music and going over to Arthur.
'Apparently I can use the blood of others. But how could I store it?'
"Chad, do you know any way I can keep the blood? It might be a pain to constantly carry it around," Arthur asked.
"No clue!" was Chad's response.
Arthur grabbed the blood, grouping it together before changing it into a ring.
'For now, this might be my best option.'
All of Pyro's blood was now a ring on his finger. Arthur went over to the ledge, looking down and seeing a trail of blood. Arthur jumped out, falling down and slamming into the ground, using his legs as cushions.
They were damaged, but not broken, so he quickly just healed them and gathered up the blood, turning it into a necklace which he put on. He grabbed the necklace and fused the ring, adding those two things together.
Out of curiosity, he formed a katana with the blood, and he was pretty pleased by it.
Again, the blood was not one to one. Even a fairly small amount of blood could create a knife, and in this case, he created a whole katana, with a proper guard along with it.
The reason for choosing a katana was simply because David had shown him it as a weapon in the game they played. He turned it back into a necklace, before changing it into a ring. Arthur was quite surprised, but indeed, while the amount was a factor in terms of creating large things, it was not for making small things.
To put things simply, he could create a ring from perhaps any amount of blood, regardless of how small or large it was.
If he gathered a whole pool of blood, as in a literal pool, then perhaps he could create a ring which stored all of it there, and use that as a manner of surprise, creating a giant sword from a mere ring.
But before he could get too happy, he heard a shrill voice, obviously coming from Pyro.
"C'mere, bastard… I'm not dead yet!"
It came from an upper floor. From what Arthur could tell, the boy fell down, slammed into the ground, crawled and left a trail of blood before healing his wound and going upstairs.
Arthur gave pursuit, though he was wary of any flames, trying to sense any heat before making his turns up stairs. Finally, he reached the roof, where he saw it.
Purely, it was a dragon.
Not in the manner Arthur currently was, either. He was a dragon who currently donned the appearance of a human. However, what he saw was a true, genuine dragon.
At a height of perhaps around 20 feet tall, with large, red wings. It was bathed in an orange-red color, flames burning around it. Chad himself was on the roof, and he turned on the music.
"YAY! AN ACTUAL DRAGON FIGHT! What're ya gonna do, broski?! Are you going to turn into your own dragon form, or will you stay just like that? Either way, I wish I brought popcorn!"
"I'm gonna fucking murder you, you fucker," Pyro said, like a Manhua bully who gets beaten up within the first 10 chapters.
Arthur stepped back in fear, before stopping himself with a small, terrified grin.
'Nah, it's… it'll be fine.'
Arthur raised his hand, forming a smaller spear of blood as the music turning into an electronic, hype boss theme.
"Ah, I'm becoming really dirty…"
He too was plagued with the sickness known as "hype." The music, the cold wind, and the snow which fell down, his own vision declaring a dragon was standing before him, as well as the interest in testing out his new understanding of his technique, all of it was igniting his heart and his blood.
"Let's do this."
Arthur said, swinging his spear towards the ground as he readied himself to take on the dragon.