"Very well," Azaroth said calmly. "Here I come."

There was no need for formation; all Azaroth did was gather his will and form what he wanted with his mind as simply as that.

He raised his hand, and power gathered around it. His right hand glowed red like lava. He held the power there and added more until the air started to blow hotly against his skin.

Crypt Master tightened his hold on his shield as he watched the power that Azaroth had gathered.

Azaroth smiled then as his lips shaped what he wanted to say. "Fire." The energy he had gathered released with a blast of red-black kinetic force. A blinding beam of red light, concentrated and pulsing, rapidly crossed the distance in a flash, carrying a piercing humming sound as it slammed into Crypt Master’s shield.

It collided with the shield, and a shockwave turned the ground into a large crater. The shield collapsed under Azaroth’s attack, and Crypt Master turned surprised eyes up before the attack slammed into him, sending him back. He raised his right hand, and the fire slammed into an invisible force that made it curve around.

But he might as well have been splashing Crypt Master with water for all the harm it did him. Crypt Master laughed. "This is most unexpected! You were able to break my shield. I didn’t know you could do that with borrowed power."

A trail of a straight line appeared from Azaroth to Crypt Master, showing how the attack had moved and melted the rock in a straight line.

Azaroth was shaking from the amount of power he had released, and he knew if not for the chaos core, he might have exploded. Still, his fingers tingled, and his ears roared with power. "Is that enough?" Azaroth asked.

Crypt Master smirked. "Why don’t you use all of it? All the power? If you can handle it."

Azaroth frowned. He checked his chaos core; there was nothing strange about it except that it was drinking the power. Where it was storing it, he had no idea.

He looked at the orb of power above him; the red ball of energy had shrunk, either from his chaos core drinking it or the attack he had just finished using.

Azaroth then looked at the smirking Crypt Master, and all he wanted to do was wipe that smirk from his lips. He raised his hand, and the orb of power floated to it.

"What are you doing? Don’t touch that! It’s raw essence. Raw power! It will tear you apart!" Crypt Master shouted.

Azaroth ignored him, and his hand continued to rise. Then his chaos core jerked, and his chaos thread came up to wrap around his right hand.

He touched the small ball of ripping, twisting energy as if it was nothing. Azaroth smiled then, a feral smile of the wolves. "Raw power," he said. Too bad it was borrowed power and not his own.

He pressed his will on the ball, and it resisted him. He pressed harder, feeling a little resistance, but then he shoved all his will against it in a clash.

Whatever resistance was there gave way, and the ball of energy shuddered, entirely under his control. Azaroth then shaped it into a sword of red energy.

Crypt Master’s eyes widened, and he took an unconscious step back. He had never seen anything like this before. Shaping raw energy of that amount as if it was just a skill. How was this boy doing it?

He wanted to know, and his eyes gleamed because even Crypt Master wouldn’t dare to touch raw energy like that. Was the boy hiding something from him?

Azaroth raised the energy sword and slashed. An angry, throbbing red energy blasted out in an arc that seared the air. Crypt Master manifested his shield, and it was cut into two. The energy continued and slashed Crypt Master along with half the mountain.

Azaroth stared as the two halves of Crypt Master fell into different places, and blood and guts splattered down. Silence descended like a living thing.

The team looked from Azaroth’s raised hand to Crypt Master’s dead form. Their mouths were open in surprise. No one moved or said anything. What just happened?

"Did...did Azaroth just kill the Crypt Master?" Alex asked in stunned surprise. He could not believe what he was seeing, or maybe they weren’t seeing right since they were far from Azaroth.

They kept their distance from the heat that was coming from Azaroth like flowing lava.

"I think so?" Catena replied. He had never seen such powers in use before, and Azaroth was using it as if he was born to it. As if he was the owner.

Stallus said nothing at first as she also looked at Azaroth. Then she called to him. "What happened?"

Azaroth had no idea what just happened as well. The power he used in the sword slash was not as powerful as the first attack, so why did it kill the Crypt Master?

Azaroth narrowed his eyes and brought down his hand. Can the Crypt Master even be killed? He said he controls everything in the crypt. Azaroth shouted, "Stop hiding and come out!"

His voice boomed, making the others flinch at the sound.

Nothing happened at first, but then the wind started blowing, and the sky darkened. The blood from around the dead Crypt Master gathered together in the air and formed a big red egg that glowed softly.

Then it cracked open, and Crypt Master burst out of it. He had changed again, and now his skin was the color of blood, and his hair was made of red jewels that clicked together as he shook his head.

The others gasped while Azaroth looked at him flatly.

"You should have seen your faces! It was real scared! Did you really believe I’d be dead? Me? The Crypt Master?" He laughed again, his whole body quaking. He rested his hand on his stomach and shook with laughter.