Mad God – Reborn

Inside the room, the wind whirled so hard it smashed the table behind Ren into tiny splinters, shredded the tablecloth, and sliced the silverware, food, and drinks on it. Within seconds, the air filled with water, as if a typhoon had just arrived from nowhere. Luckily for the onlookers, Ariana, Kitten, Sentios, and Rabout were prepared and warded off its area of effect, so nobody got hurt.

"Not bad." Ren nodded, standing inside the storm and munching on the last cookie she could grab before the rest disintegrated.

"Don't underestimate me!" Keina swung both arms in a vertical slice, sending two sharp, quick water blades toward Ren.

"Not strong enough." She looked at them calmly, then swiped her right hand diagonally, splitting the incoming attacks in two. "Try focusing your attacks on a sharp point. Water pressure works better that way. With enough force, you could easily cut through anything or puncture even the thickest defenses. My mother excels in that."

"Hmph!" Keina snorted, drawing a circle before her and creating a ring of water while she watched Ren's hand, which she used to deflect her attack. It was flickering with purple lightning... Making her insides buzz. When the circle was completed, she just grabbed onto it, throwing it out with a shout. It whizzed past Ren, who tilted her head just before it could slice into her, but the quickly spinning water chakram still cut off a few strands of her hair.

Keina was not finished after her attack. Still standing, she motioned with her hand, and her chakram-like weapon spun back around, aiming at Ren's back. In that moment, she was still straightening her head after dodging the first attack when the water weapon returned. Before it could hit her, she raised her bare hand, grabbed it mid-air, and held it between her fingers, eyes on Keina, not the chakram, stopping it completely without injury.

In response, Keina's hand sign changed, and the previously spinning, sharp weapon stopped struggling in Ren's grasp as she felt it transform in the blink of an eye. It didn't just change shape as it flowed down, enveloping her hand; it also changed temperature. In a second, it froze half her arm, coating it in thick ice, keeping it from moving.

"Oh my!" Ren exclaimed, surprised, as she honestly hadn't expected it. "You can manipulate the state of water? Can you produce all three versions of it?" She asked, and her excited, unflustered voice shocked Keina, as alarm bells began to ring in her mind. "My mother can't do it. Neither can my disciple Yanda… True, he took a different route with his cultivation… So, anyway, you are good. Oh, this is awesome! We could develop some things together, you know!"

"You act like you know a lot about me and my abilities." Keina looked on with a serious expression, focusing as she held Ren's arm in an icy prison, trying to expand it further and lock her in.

"I do." Ren nodded with a grin. "My mother has water affinity. My disciple has one. I have to know about it." She said, snapping her free fingers. Purple lightning bolts cracked forward at once, using the water in the air to split into dozens of tiny threads and reach her from every angle.

"You know nothing!" Keina cried out, stomping on the ground. A tall curtain of water rose up from nowhere, protecting her and diverting the incoming bolts into the ground. It was enveloping her in a bubble, shielding Keina from any damage. "Now I have a good feeling about you! You are at the same level as me!" She said with more confidence, feeling the power behind her previous attack. "I don't know why you are so confident. Is it a front? Trying not to scare your people here?" She asked, hiding inside her water bubble so Ren's attacks couldn't reach her. By then, the ice had already spread, covering half of Ren's chest, crawling up her neck and down her thighs.

"Ahaha, sure, sure." Ren chuckled. "I'm just enjoying the cold. It's a funny feeling when it gets between your legs!"

Her response made not just Keina's eyebrows tremble a little, but also the eyebrows of many other spectators, while Rabout stood beside Ariana and asked in a low voice.

"Was she always like this? Is it an inherited condition? Maybe our genes degraded that much throughout the centuries?"

"It's nothing like that. She was always like this." Ariana replied, shaking her head with an honest look. "Especially with Uncle Leinor…" She added in a sad, pained voice, "I think Master misses the playful fights with him… they always used to go back and forth like this when sparring…"

"Oh… I see." Rabout nodded in understanding, sighing softly.

"What else?" came the sudden question from between Ren's smiling lips, but Keina gave no answer, still trying to freeze her over. "This is it?" She tilted her head, watching Keina focus on her spell as the ice spread faster across Ren's body. "Haahh… You made some great things by developing your affinity this way. I applaud your imagination and turning your water spells essentially into three kinds of affinity… but they are not too deep." She sighed, speaking like an old teacher. "This is only a surface-level achievement. Someone with a natural-born ice affinity would laugh at you! They wouldn't even feel how cold it is. You are as far away from sub-zero temperatures as Rudrick was from being a caring and passionate husband!" Ren said, looking deep into Keina's eyes.

"Shut up!" Keina screamed back, her eyes glowing like torches as she tried to influence Ren's mind, invading it to shut her mouth. But just as she did, Ren's irises lit up, brighter than a lighthouse, essentially blinding Keina for a moment. "Aaaaah?!" She screamed, grabbing onto her own face with one hand as blood flowed from her eyes, making her vision extremely fuzzy.

"You are talented, Keina, but your thoughts are distracted by unnecessary things." Ren continued, flexing her frozen arm, and everyone could hear the ice shattering as it exploded into millions of little pieces, sparkling like diamonds while the air was filled with purple electricity coming from Ren's body.

"...!" Keina could only gasp and then bite her own lip until blood flowed, trying to regain control, but it was too late. Just as she raised her hand again, Ren was already before her, popping her water shield like a balloon. What shocked Keina even more was that Ren did this with only her index finger extended, pointing directly at her as she fell to her knees, gasping for air. She still felt like her head was going to be split open, throbbing like crazy. Blood was still streaming down her face, from her eyes, as her brain swelled up inside her skull from the backlash of trying to influence Ren's mind.

"I'm ready anytime to spar with you. I can instruct you through those matches. Come and challenge me whenever you see fit; I won't say no." Ren said calmly, lowering her pointing hand as the raging storm inside the room slowly subsided.

In the end, everyone could see and hear blood slowly dripping onto the damaged floor tiles from between Keina's fingers, which were holding her own head. Keina's body was shaking now, not from anger or frustration, but from embarrassment; she felt like she wanted to burst from the inside. When Ren shattered her defenses, she felt something unbelievable in that last moment. The aura that hit her like a blast of wind was frightening. Something she had never felt before, far stronger than anything Rudrick could ever produce. She could not tell her concrete strength, but one thing was sure; now, she really believed that she had killed him by herself.

"It is… my loss…" Keina said quietly, her voice weak, lowering the hand covering her face. She blinked the bloody droplets from her eyes, trying to see through the haze as she gazed at Ren.

"My Liege!" Nuray shouted, rushing forward, holding onto her body to help her up. Even though she said nothing to Ren, her eyes alone could swallow her.

"She is fine, don't worry." Ren chuckled, holding her hand behind her back.

"We are leaving," Keina murmured in the end, looking into Ren's eyes one last time before turning and walking toward the door. At first, she wobbled, but Nuray helped her quickly find her footing. No matter how hard her guard captain wanted to say something, seeing her Lord being defeated in front of so many pairs of eyes, and those same pupils watching them now leave like beaten dogs, made her tremble with anger, without any chance to let it out, which made it even worse.

"Ariana!" Ren called out, and her disciple stepped forward immediately, knowing what she wanted.

"I'll escort you out." She hurried past Keina and opened the door for them. Keina watched the maid outfit she wore, wondering how many hidden experts Ren might have at her side. Now she was sure she'd struggle against one of her maids and lose all her previous confidence in a single fight... In that moment, all her positive feelings were replaced with doubt and questions.

When they finally returned to their carriage and headed back to their Spire, Keina stayed silent the whole way, speaking to Nuray only after they stepped through their courtyard gate.

"Do not go and provoke them," she said in a weak, powerless voice, walking past her guard captain after she stepped out of the carriage. "I wouldn't be able to save you in time."

"My liege…" Nuray gasped, watching her back, but couldn't say anything or even follow, lost and confused by what had happened in those few hours since sunset.

…

….

…..

"What is it?" a cold voice echoed between metallic walls, bouncing off them. The room itself was like that of a butcher's, splattered with blood stains or who knows what else, while long chains were hanging down from the ceiling, holding pieces of human bodies. They were different sexes, and from every age group, all carved up differently. They were gutted like pigs or 'just' skinned and dismembered. One man was standing in the middle of the bloody scenery, in front of a giant table where a white-haired man's corpse was laid out. It was already skinned, and parts of his organs were picked out, sorted, and put into labeled jars. They sat at the side while the voice's owner inspected a plucked violet eyeball, its nerve endings intact. As he held it, his aura covered its surface, his fingers bloody, wearing a bloodstained white outfit. His silver hair was long but tied back, and his purple eyes were fixed on the eyeball he held up to the light.

"Your Lordship… The Spire of Rudrick has activated tonight. It means someone came and took control of it," a male voice explained, filled with deep respect, standing further away with a bowed head, only watching the legs of his Lord, not daring to raise his head further up.

"Hmm… So there are living descendants of him left? Probably some mutts. All of the pure ones are dead. If the one who inherited his Spire is a half-breed, this is a complete disgrace!" He sighed, placing the eyeball into a see-through container filled with some kind of liquid to preserve it in perfect condition. "Go, send out our men and find out everything for me by tomorrow. We can't let the bloodline be muddled up anymore by some degenerate gene sequences wriggling their way into it!"

"Yes, Your Lordship!" He bowed even deeper, backed out, and didn't dare turn his back on him until he left the room.

"Mhmm… there are too many defects nowadays." he stretched, shaking off the blood from her hand with a smile. "It is time to make some changes in the family structure. We veered off the right path..." he sighed, watching the crest on the opposite wall drawn upon it by blood, which depicted an eye stabbed through vertically by a sword. "Don't worry, Ancestor. I'll drive us back onto the correct path!" he laughed, clearly in an excellent mood.