An Endless Haze

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I've finished planting the inscription!" 

"Lyle, you need to get out of there before that inscription detonates!" A feminine voice orders through his earbud. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting out of here now!" Lyle responds, leaving the storage room and entering back into the engine room of the stadium. It was a massive room, holding a giant contraption held by bronze cogs and steel nails. It constantly released powerful steam that travelled through pipes and left through the back of the stadium. These pipes stretched everywhere in different directions, twisting and turning. Valves controlled their placement in numerous locations in the room.

As he walks out of the storage room, he comes face to face with a masked man. Before Lyle could react, a blade was swung directly to his neck, prompting Lyle to duck in reflex. While he was underneath the slash, he goes in to tackle the masked man, only for the masked man to leap back and keep his distance. "Looking at your build, I bet you ain't got a ton of muscle like me? Isn't that right?" Lyle said, tapping against his muscular arm. He points at his masked opponent, saying, "You, identify yourself! I am Lyle, muscular soldier of the Eiden crime syndicate!" He proceeded to flex proudly, his muscles not showing underneath his clothing. He was of darker skin tone and wore a leather coat with metal sheets covering multiple parts of his attire.

"Stop revealing your identity to every opponent you encounter! It makes our missions much harder!" The female voice screamed.

"Why is that? Isn't it a warrior's duty to name themselves before combat?!" Lyle flexed even harder, his muscles ripping through his leather coat.

"Because we risk getting our plans leaked! Right now, we're here for the girl, anyway!"

Harold cut them off from their conversation, aiming his blade at Lyle. "My name is Ark." he says under his white mask. Lyle whistled, hearing his menacing tone. "See, I knew another glorious warrior would identify themselves!" 

"Just kill him and get the girl already-" His earbud rang in his ear till Lyle pocketed it, muffling it under his clothes. "That should do." He murmured. Taking out his axe from his back, he spun it around in the air before gripping it with two hands. "Now, let's battle, Ark!" Swooping in, Lyle swung his axe in a downward direction. Seeing this attack, Harold swerved to the side before swinging at Lyle's stomach. Turning his wrist, Lyle made his axe block the counterattack and attempted to yank Harold's blade out of his hand. 

But for Harold, he saw this coming; Harold gripped his blade tight before emitting a strong bunch of divine light into his blade. Then, redirecting his blade to point directly at Lyle's face, he releases that divine light, blasting it at full throttle. With little hesitation, Lyle reeled back his head, swiftly dodging the attack. "Hey, you're not bad!" After letting out an excited shout, Lyle took a percussion pistol out of his pocket. This was not what Harold had anticipated. Pulling the trigger, he stood in an awkward position, but his aim was still directed at Harold. Firing at him, he didn't hit the intended target of his head, but still managed to hit him right in the shoulder. Harold shuffled back, groaning a little. "A bullet is still a dang bullet... I hate getting shot at!" 

Even if it was not his first time getting shot, he never got over the pain it induced. Lyle grinned, his heart racing at the thrill of battle. "Wow, ain't that a nice and dandy Artifact." Looking back at the damage Harold caused with his divine light, he analyzed the full scale of it. The divine light caused a massive crater on impact, a rough opening as if it was a tremendous force that pushed through the wall from behind. "Your Artifact emits light, yet it holds such power! How can light be that powerful?!" 

Harold already knew the answer, but was not who openly tells his cards. The sole reason was due to it being divine light. Stronger and faster than normal light, no wonder the previous user of this ability dominated a mighty kingdom. 

"But!" Lyle grasped onto his axe with an excited grin. "It appears you must be inexperienced with your Artifact!" His axe let out a radiant circle colored in red, holding an insignia of flames in the middle. That glow, that appearance, and the flames that erupted out of that insignia—it was a fire inscription. Lyle swiped the air, his inscription radiating a bright red before fizzling out, causing a trail of fire to stream out of his axe. This trail extended all the way to Harold, forcing Harold to block with a stream of divine light. His light splits the flames on collision, stopping directly in front of Lyle's axe. As their attacks dissipated, they came to a standstill. 

"Your Artifact attacks have no focus, no precision! It's just you releasing raw output. If you want to make a change, focus beforehand before directing it towards your target!" Lyle says, pointing at Harold. 

"Why are you giving your opponent advice? This is a life or death situation." Harold asked, curious what his motives are.

"Because true men fight at their greatest! If not, then it was never a battle to begin with!"

Harold charged up his divine light in Grand Radiance once more, the blade glowing in the dim engine room. Lyle stands still with his arms crossed, giving a proud grin. As Harold points his blade at Lyle, he focused hard, concentrating all of his divine light into one singular blast before releasing it at Lyle. The projectile of divine light burst through the air with a heavy amount of force, creating shockwaves that shook the pipes in the room. It was faster, stronger, and brighter, compared to how he previously did it before. As the projectile hits Lyle, he stands to take it all with pride, sending him flying into a batch of pipes that interconnected against the walls. The pipes snapped open, releasing a heavy amount of steam into the room. 

Even though the results were great, Harold still felt quite annoyed about it. "I can't believe listening to the advice worked..." Lyle brought himself to his feet, dashing forward at Harold. "You're a fast learner; I like you!" his voice out-powered the noises of steam escaping the pipes in the room. With his axe in one hand and his pistol in other; he first fires a bullet at Harold to start his assault. Harold couldn't out-speed a bullet nor tank one head on, so the best bet was his intuition. "I'll move to the side!"

The bullet whiffed through the air, grazing Harold's arm. "Close call; if he got me in my arm, I probably would be in a tight spot!" Harold saw Lyle coming in with his axe, sloppily swinging it at him. "What type of move is that?" He thought as he casually parried away his axe. That's when the sudden surprise came into play. Lyle aimed his pistol discreetly at his side, Harold only catching it from the corner of his vision. "He hasn't reloaded yet, so what is he doing with his pistol?" That's when it clicked. Swiftly, Harold used his right leg to kick Lyle's pistol away, allowing him to avoid the impending danger that soon came. Lyle's pistol also had an inscription that radiated as it released a bullet of concentrated fire, blitzing past Harold's hair with intense speed and power. Flinching on the shot, Harold let out a nervous chuckle. "That was close... If I didn't know he was an inscription fighter, I'd probably be on the floor by now!"

Everywhere, there are many particles that are invisible to the naked eye. These particles are called Rysen. In the air, in objects, and even in people, Rysen is part of the fundamental equation of life. Even if we cannot see them, people from around the world had come up with many ways to utilize them. One of the most popular ways is with inscriptions. Inscriptions are written formulas that are able to manipulate these particles at will. And for Lyle's case, he uses inscriptions for combat, making him an inscription fighter. 

In retaliation for his aim being redirected, Lyle grappled onto the arms of Harold and began tried to take him down with sheer strength. Harold, realizing this, also decided to engage in his wrestling match, trying to take him down as well. As they both use brute force against each other, Lyle pulled back his head, going in for a headbutt. With little reaction time, Harold pushed the top of his head against Lyle's head, leaving no margin of room for the headbutt to release. "Quick thinking, but you're too hyper-focused on it!" Lyle roared as he took advantage of the moment, kicking Harold's ankle and tossing him to the ground. 

Harold's entire body smashed against the metal gratings of the engine room, a loud metal thud echoed in the room. Without hesitation, Lyle raised his axe and activated his inscription, leading out a burst of flames as he swung down onto Lyle. In quick succession, Harold rolled to the side and countered Lyle with a kick while his axe gets buried into the metal gratings. Lyle recoiled back, his head swinging to the side from the immense force of the kick. As he tried to get his axe again, Harold was already going in for a slash to Lyle's neck. Slicing through the axe's handle, his Artifact, imbued with an immense gathering of divine light, hurls itself at Lyle's neck. 

Before his slash could connect to Lyle's neck, an explosion erupted in the engine room, causing Harold to black out in an instant.

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The engine room was in a blaze, and debris was everywhere. 

"Lyle, I told you to get out of there before that inscription detonates! Now we can't proceed with the mission cause you're nearly dead!" 

Lyle sat up in a bleeding mess. There were two large sheets of metal stuck inside of his body, and his clothing was tattered. Rummaging in his pockets, he searched for a healing potion, only to cut his hands against the shattered glass of the potion bottles in his pockets. "God damn it! I'll have to retreat for now... I'm going to die at this rate." Pulling out a stone with a written inscription on it, he could hear the voice of his earbud scream out to him. "You moron, now we can't get the girl, and we're wasting a teleportation stone! You know how much we had to take out of our budget to get one of these?!"

Using the stone with the inscription, a light formulates around his body. "Well, while we may not have gotten the mission done, I did manage to stumble upon someone our boss might take a liking to!" Lyle grinned as he looked at Harold's unconscious body. "Ark, you said your name was? I wonder what type of warrior is underneath that mask." Then, a bright light flickered as Lyle is teleported out of there.