Katanexy

Chapter 572: Strax vs Dutch Blazer


Chapter 572: Strax vs Dutch Blazer


The flames roared around them like maddened beasts. The echoes of steel against steel, fire against flesh, will against will filled the air. Scathach and Albert clashed like primal forces, their eyes burning with hatred and wounded pride. Her spear sliced through the air with lethal grace, while Albert responded with heavy blows, each movement threatening to shatter the very ground beneath his feet.


But as this ancient duel raged, something else was happening: something younger, more personal, and dangerously unstable.


Strax clenched his fists, his body sweating and vibrating with tension. Dutch Blazer, instead of focusing on the confrontation between them, dismissed him, as if Strax were little more than a momentary nuisance. He dodged with ease, as if dealing with an apprentice… and his eyes, when not on Strax, were constantly on Albert.


“You still don’t understand your place, boy?” Dutch said, with a smile like the crackling of a coal. “Get out of the way. I have business with that man.”


Strax growled, his eyes glinting with something dark—something he hadn’t yet shown. “My mother is fighting with him. It’s none of your business.”


Dutch laughed, that incandescent laugh that seemed to mock the world. “Ah, Scathach… that woman never knew how to stay in her place. As always, provoking men she shouldn’t. But Albert? He’s just another one. I want him down, for everything he took from me.”


Strax advanced with surprising speed, his feet sinking into the ground with the impact. His fists aimed at Dutch’s abdomen, who dodged with a spin and countered with a flaming kick. Strax blocked, but was thrown back several feet, sliding across the scorched earth.


“You’re persistent. But you’re still just a brat,” Dutch taunted.


Strax slowly stood up. Blood trickled from his eyebrow, but he didn’t care. His muscles trembled. Not from exhaustion, but from rage. Pure rage.


“I’m not a brat,” he said, his voice grave. “I’m her son. And you will respect me.”


Dutch laughed again and then disappeared in a wave of heat. He reappeared behind Albert, his flaming fist poised to collide with the back of the Grand Duke’s head. Albert barely had time to react—he turned and crossed his arms to block the impact, being thrown back several feet, his foot dragging on the cracked ground.


“I told you my fight isn’t with you, boy,” Dutch muttered, rolling his shoulders.


That was when Strax broke.


His body shook with something beyond anger—something that surpassed the limits of self-control. The veins in his arms began to darken, as if a dense, wild energy was coursing through them. The ground around his feet cracked.


“You’ll hear me…” he muttered.


Dutch didn’t even look back. He took two steps toward Albert.


“HEY, YOU WORM!” Strax roared, his voice echoing like thunder. “YOUR FIGHT IS WITH ME!”


Before Dutch could respond, Strax struck him. A punch straight to the stomach, hard enough to double over. The impact sent a shockwave that scattered ash in all directions. Dutch recoiled, looking surprised, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth.


The mocking expression faded.


“So you have some strength after all,” Dutch muttered, wiping the blood away with his thumb. “Good. It’ll hurt more this way when I crush you.”


Strax didn’t respond. Her eyes were filled with a dark aura, an inner glow that reminded him of his mother’s gaze when she dominated the battlefield. There was a legacy there—but also something new, something unique. A strength that came from the very soul, fueled by the need to protect… and wounded pride.


They clashed once more. Dutch was covered in flames, his punches so fast they sliced through the air like blades. Strax, on the other hand, was a moving wall. Every blow he blocked left sparks, and every counterattack shook the ground.


On the other side, Albert and Scathach continued their fight, almost oblivious to the parallel duel. Scathach’s spear crackled with ancient runes and forgotten war cries. Albert countered with pure martial technique and raw power, each movement a sentence. The fury turned to dance—and the dance to destruction.


But it was impossible not to notice the change on the battlefield.


Strax was growing.


With each punch, Dutch retreated further.


And for the first time… he looked surprised.


Samira, still in the sky like a dragon, watched the fight with narrowed eyes. She saw the gleam in her brother’s eyes. She saw the dark energy gathering around him. She sensed, deep down, that something was about to spiral out of control—or awaken.


And the Dutch, perhaps for the first time in a long time, began to fight for real.


No smiles.


No taunts.


Dust still hung in the air when Dutch Blazer rose from Strax’s punch. His eyes, once full of mockery, were now narrowed, assessing the young man before him with a new gaze—more watchful, more dangerous.


He ran his hand slowly across his abdomen, feeling the spot where Strax’s fist had connected. The dark smear of blood on his fingertips made his expression transform into something even more savage.


“You dared to hurt me…” he said, his voice low and thick with contempt. “Do you think that makes you an equal?”


Strax stood his ground, his fists clenched, his body vibrating with pulsing energy. He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. His look said it all: he wouldn’t back down.


Dutch lifted his chin, anger boiling like magma beneath his skin. “Fine then,” he murmured. “No mercy.”


In an instant, he vanished in a flash of scarlet, reappearing behind Strax in a blur of fire. The first blow was a spinning kick, so fast the air exploded around them. Strax blocked it, but the impact sent him sliding backward, his boots digging into the ground like blades.


Dutch didn’t give him time to breathe. He lunged forward with a series of flaming punches, each heavier and faster than the last. Strax tried to block, but the blows were becoming harder to follow.


A hook pierced his guard and struck him in the face with brute force, sending his body flying several meters until it collided with a pillar that collapsed on top of him.


The stone structure crumbled with a crash.


“You think you can challenge me?” roared Dutch, charging forward. “I ruled the battlefield before you were even born!”


Strax emerged from the rubble, his face bruised and blood streaming from his nose and mouth. But his eyes showed no pain. Just… focus. He wiped the blood away with his forearm and took a deep breath.


“And yet… you’re bleeding, old man.”


Dutch screamed and unleashed a wave of fire from his hands. The flame took the form of a colossal serpent, advancing on Strax with speed and fury.


But Strax dug his feet into the ground and extended his arms.


The impact of the flames enveloped him completely, and for an instant, everything transformed into light and heat. The flames licked at the earth, devouring the ruins around them. The energy burned even the air.


When the curtain of fire ceased… Strax was still standing.


Panting. Burned. But standing.


His eyes now burned with a light of their own. A dark, almost opaque aura rose around him. It wasn’t like Dutch’s flame—it was dense, heavy, almost gravitational. Like a storm gathering strength.


“You talk too much,” he muttered.


And then it was Strax’s turn to advance.


With speed he’d never demonstrated before, he appeared in front of Dutch and unleashed a series of sharp, powerful, and direct blows. A punch to the stomach. An elbow to the jaw. A knee to the chest. Dutch was thrown backward, spinning in the air before falling to his knees, his chest heaving.


For the first time, he tasted the bitter taste of surprise. And pain.


Strax lunged again, but this time Dutch intercepted. They collided with seismic force, and the ground around them exploded into fragments of stone and ash. They exchanged blows like two planets colliding—neither retreating nor yielding.


Dutch’s flames were now shields and swords. Strax’s aura, in turn, seemed to absorb the heat, fueling his strength.


Their every move was a battle in itself. A clash of wills, of generations, of unresolved stories.


“You… have her strength,” Dutch said through gritted teeth, blocking another punch. “Scathach’s.”


Strax responded with a left hook. “And his rage,” he muttered, referring to Albert himself.


Dutch staggered.


It was true. This boy—no, this man—was an impossible synthesis of the two forces he hated most in this world.


And he was competing with him.


Roaring, Dutch burst into flames, unleashing a flaming sphere around him that knocked Strax back several feet. He slammed his hands into the ground, cracking it and releasing columns of fire that rose like spears.


Strax ran between them, dodging with agile, almost catlike movements. A pillar struck his shoulder, tearing flesh and singeing skin. But he didn’t stop.


He leaped over the last one and kneed Dutch in the chin, sending the duke flying off the ground.


Before he could fall, Strax spun in the air and slammed both fists into Dutch’s back, sending him crashing to the ground in an explosion of dirt and dust.


The ground shook.


Silence.


Strax took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling as he stared at the smoking crater in front of him.


But then… a laugh.


Low. Hoarse. Burning.


Dutch emerged from the hole with his face covered in blood and a crooked, half-crazy smile.


“You’re good… too good,” he said, coughing up blood. “But now… now I have fun.”


The sky above them shook with distant thunder.


Dutch raised his hands to the sky, and his flames changed color. From red to white. An intense, almost divine white. The flames didn’t burn—they destroyed.