Khar was patiently looking at the broken boundary, watching for any movement. He could sense the Sector-Chiefs coming his way. 'I should use cursed techniques before anyone else arrives to avoid further problems,' he thought.
But despite all his efforts, he was unable to notice Sharv before he appeared in front of him, now riding a rising wave of deep blue water, his Water Chakra glowing deep ocean blue—a color so deep it almost represented the deepest, darkest part of the ocean. It felt cold just being close to him.
'Another Chakra with an abnormal color!' Khar thought to himself. 'He definitely is a KEEPER, our sworn birth enemy.'
He used his Air Chakra to the fullest and coated himself and his punches in an air shell just like Sharv had before, but this shell was greenish in color. Sharv simply came in front of him and started throwing hands. Sometimes a spear made of water would launch itself from the wave he was standing on, which, while stationary, seemed to move forward—a mind-bending illusion, though not a separate technique.
Khar blocked all the punches, but spears came randomly, disrupting his defense and bruising him here and there. He launched counter-attacks to avoid being on the receiving end. But unlike the shell Sharv had used before, this time a shield would always rise on time from the wave Sharv was riding to block the attack. No matter how much power Khar would use, the shield would absorb it and send ripples through the whole wave, nullifying the attack.
Seeing that this exchange was going nowhere, Sharv changed his tactic. He manipulated the wave to divide it into four discs rotating at tremendous speeds. Now he was standing on a flat, rotating water disc, and three other discs were to his right, left, and above his head. Khar was caught by surprise, but soon, to his dismay, long whips came out of the wheels, barraging his air shell from left, right, up, and down. His eyes widened with shock when the shell cracked and a whip lashed him across his face.
Being whipped once was nothing major for a Marshal like Khar, but soon the shell cracked open, and the whips, counting more than forty, made him yelp in pain. The whips striking his body made a sound as if a bamboo forest were on fire and the bamboo was cracking open, but put on a loudspeaker. Nonetheless, Khar had lost his wits. He was preparing something sinister, as his eyes had turned black. Sharv used two discs, one from his right and the other one under his feet, to bind Khar down, and combined the other two into a big whip which he grabbed with his hands.
Sharv spun himself like a disc to generate power and momentum, which left him defenseless. Khar used this moment to hit him with a sneaky attack.
"Unhealing body," he murmured in a low voice, and the shell that was protecting him turned black. Sharv, who was mid-spin, did not notice the change and went ahead with his attack. The big, abnormal water whip landed flat on Khar's chest; a loud whiplash reverberated through the prison, the sound traveling much farther into the city. Even the Sector-Chiefs who had almost reached the battlefield were shocked. Khar was again sent towards the main prison building, and this time he broke more than just one wall. He had gone deep inside the building.
Sharv had heard the cracking sounds of Khar's ribcage, but he was not unscathed. At the same time his whip attack landed, Khar's protective shell exploded, turning into blades. These blades, though made of air, cut through every physical object on their way to Sharv, including his water shield.
Sharv didn't bother to look or analyze his wounds. He immediately shot to neutralize Khar. But just as he moved, an old man landed between him and Khar. He had appeared almost instantaneously without making any loud sound except a whooshing sound of air. But if one were to look closely, they would find the ground around him rippling as if it were water.
"Sector-Chief Vrat arrived so fast?" murmurs appeared just as instantaneously among the prison personnel, who were nothing more than grass about to be stomped by two raging bulls. Gasps were heard as, for the first time, Sharv moved back to avoid colliding with old man Vrat.
"Child, why did you come here to throw your life away?" Vrat spoke in an unbothered tone. Little did he know, Sharv was not listening to him, nor did he back off because of him. And he was correct.
Sharv was looking at his chest, where a long horizontal slash was bleeding him out without any sign of stopping. Then he looked at his hands and legs. Wherever the blades from Khar's shell had cut him, he was bleeding profusely.
'What!' Sharv exclaimed internally. 'Is this a Voidheart cursed technique? Father wrote that these techniques generally affect PRĀNÀ and Nādís, but this is simply physical. It's directly affecting my body, nothing else.'
He then looked up towards Khar, who was now coming out of the hole in the prison wall, blood dripping down his nose and lips, but he was still smiling as if he had accomplished what he wanted. Though Sharv was thinking about something different.
'Oh, I see now. The same blackish-golden suit as those commanders. He is from the Void Corps,' he thought, rubbing his right hand on his chest wound. 'I wonder if that force deals with Voidhearts or if it is made of Voidhearts.'
"Whatever," Sharv said out loud, causing Vrat to frown. It had taken almost just a second or two for Sharv to think all this, and Vrat thought he was answering his question.
"Child, I warn you again. Surrender, or you might die," Vrat said with authority, his old, raspy voice sounding harsh.
"Old man, you are not the problem," Sharv said. 'My problem is, I have not created any technique for physical curses. The last time I had arrows in my body, their curses didn't act on my body but rather on my PRĀNÀ.'
Vrat launched himself forward, towards Sharv. He appeared in front of him and sliced his hand, creating a crescent blade of earth, black in color, that moved faster than any blow Khar had launched. It was point-blank, so Sharv simply put both his hands up, covering them in light-red earthen shields.
The attack landed and cut the shields open. Sharv was not harmed but was now more alert, as someone could cut his shield.
"Not bad," Vrat said, his Earth Chakra glowing deep brown. As he spread both his hands, eight thin but much more black and dense blades came out from each of his eight fingers.
This caused Sharv to frown, which did not go unnoticed by Khar. For him, this was a great development. Vrat didn't care about it, though.
"Let's see if you can handle one of my earliest, yet most effective, creations," Vrat said. "THE EIGHT EVISCERATING BLADES."
'Old man, cut me some slack,' Sharv thought, as he smiled for the first time in any fight. 'I need to heal.'