Damian Wayne: Dark Son Chapter 41: Raksasha vs Ashura part 2/2.

Chapter 41: Raksasha vs Ashura part 2/2.

(General P.O.V)

The battlefield had split into two fronts.

Behind Damian, chaos reigned. Jason’s shots cracked through the fetid air, ripping through the legs of any Batalon that wandered too close. Barbara’s flamethrower drones hovered like angry wasps, scorching monstrous hides into bubbling rot. Nightwing weaved through the carnage with the grace of a dancer, cracking skulls with every swing of his escrima sticks.

Even Red Robin—silent, calculating—launched a zipline, wrapped it around a dive-bombing Batalon’s throat, and fried it midair until it dropped smoking.

Damian walked through the center of it all, untouched.

Eyes locked ahead.

Focused.

Richard Dragon waited at the far end of the stone walkway, still hovering above the pulsating mass of the egg pod that had swallowed Sifû. His feet touched down slowly as he lowered himself to meet Damian face-to-face.

A smirk tugged at the corner of Richard’s mouth. “Come to lose again?”

Damian said nothing for a moment. Then, calmly, “I understand now.”

Richard tilted his head. “Understand what?”

“Why I lost before.”

That made Richard raise an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Finally found your resolve, have you?” he said, circling slowly. “That’s cute. But it doesn’t fix the flaw running through your very core.”

He tapped a finger to his lips, mock thoughtful. “Let’s see. Your master’s gone. Maybe I should go for your father next. What do you think—would he scream or brood?”

And then he vanished with a phantom step, headed not for Batman but actually Barbara.

Batgirl's reflexes couldn’t keep up as Richard reappeared in front of her, his fingers glowing with condensed Chi like a scalpel honed to a lethal point. His hand slashed toward her exposed throat—

Clang!

The Chi claw stopped mid-air, clashing onto immovable metal.

Cassandra’s katana burned red with Ashura energy, pressed firmly against Richard’s fingers.

Damian stood between them, sword steady, eyes colder than steel.

Richard’s pupils twitched.

'What?!'

He leapt back instinctively, landing in a crouch, surprised by Damian's unexpected speed.

'Was he pretending to be weak the whole time?' Richard wondered. Blood dripped from his fingertips—cut clean through his hardened Chi layer. He stared at his hand, stunned.

Damian gave the blade a lazy spin, letting sparks flick off the edge. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, his voice low, even. “And I know your next move.”

Richard’s lip curled in a snarl. “Cocky—”

He didn’t finish.

Damian moved.

Not with anger. Not with noise. But with impossible speed.

One step—gone.

In a flash, he appeared in front of Richard with a hand outstretched, grabbing the man’s face with surgical precision and slamming him into the far wall with a seismic crunch.

Stone split.

Dust exploded outward.

Richard's body caved the surface of the rock.

Damian didn’t let go.

For the first time, Richard Dragon had no words.

Only the impact of his pride hitting stone.

Damian hovered with his hand still pressed against Richard’s face, the cracked wall around them rumbling. He leaned in slightly and muttered, cold and deliberate, “Stay there.”

He released him, letting Richard remain pinned in stone.

The moment Damian turned his back, his attention zeroed in on the pulsating, grotesque egg pod towering over the Lazarus swamp. Its vines writhed like angry serpents, tethered to the corrupted pool below. Damian’s sword ignited with Ashura energy, its red flames licking the air. His single horn glowed—leaking trails of crimson light like blood.

He inhaled.

And then vanished in a blink.

He reappeared before the pod, feet skidding across the swamp's edge. In a single fluid motion, he raised Cassandra’s blade and entered a stance that he'd copied from her—Dragon Dance.

Dozens—then hundreds—of precision-drawn slashes carved through the air.

Each cut was a streak of light. The pod screamed as the barrage carved through its thick exterior. Flesh tore. The inner walls peeled apart like thin layers of skin. And for a split second, Damian saw her.

Shiva.

Eyes closed. Barely breathing. Suspended like prey.

Damian didn’t wait. Phantom Step.

He blinked inside the pod and snatched her out just as it regenerated, sealing behind them with a wet, shuddering snap. Its tendrils flailed as it healed itself with Lazarus Chi drawn straight from the swamp.

Damian landed near the others. Red Robin flinched as the body hit the ground—Shiva, unconscious and pale. Her clothes had been partially dissolved by acid-like fluids. Her breathing was faint.

“Take care of her,” Damian said, not looking back.

Red Robin hesitated, then nodded, visibly shaken.

Damian turned.

The pod reacted in retaliation, sending a barrage of thorned vines smashing through the stone walkways and walls like battering rams. Damian didn’t flinch.

He sheathed his sword.

Drew back his fist.

The air around his body hummed.

Then—he struck.

Ashura energy surged through his arm, exploding in a massive shockwave that obliterated the incoming vines. The swamp’s surface churned like a sea in storm. Wind howled through the cavern.

Barbara, Nightwing, and Red Robin were nearly knocked over by the blast.

Jason let out a low whistle, reloading his pistols. “You all expected anything less from the Alpha?” he asked, grinning. “Come on. There’s a reason everyone ends up submitting to him. The kid pulls off the impossible.”

The pod shrieked in pain, parts of its body melting from residual energy backlash. Before anyone could regroup, a familiar voice cut through the chaos.

Laughter.

Richard Dragon.

He stood atop the pod now, arms wide, smile maddening.

“Calm down, my lovely,” he said, patting the pod. “Rejoice. We’ve found a worthy challenger.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed.

“Quite impressive, Damian!” Richard called out, voice echoing. “Perhaps I misjudged you. You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”

“If you’re talking about how you manipulated my Ashura,” Damian said, slowly advancing, “didn’t take long to see through your trick.”

Richard’s smile curved. “Oh? And what gave it away?”

“You,” Damian replied flatly.

The grin faltered.

“You’re capable of absorbing all Chi—Natural, Inner, Unnatural—but when you took Shiva’s energy, you didn’t do it yourself. You had the pod do it for you. Which means your body has limits. You can’t hold more, leaving you with only the option of disrupting energies you can't steal. Like my Ashura.”

Richard stared. His face twitched.

“But that’s not all,” Damian continued. “You still can’t figure out how I cut you. How I moved faster. How I kept up.”

Richard’s tone dipped into mock patience. “Do enlighten me.”

Damian smirked and ran a hand through his hair—brushing it back to reveal a second horn protruding from his head.

The smile vanished from Richard’s face.

A beat of silence.

Then a bitter chuckle. “Thank you,” Richard said, voice quieter now, no trace of cheer. “You’ve proven it. That my path wasn’t wrong. That to surpass the peak of martial arts, one must evolve beyond human limits. Just as you have.”

He spread his arms, and the entire swamp reacted.

The ground trembled. The pod quivered.

“You showed the world the Ashura,” Richard said, eyes burning. “Now witness the Raksasha.”

The chamber’s natural energy warped.

The Batalons began howling—feral, monstrous—as their bodies convulsed. Lazarus Chi inside them destabilized, going volatile. Explosions of corrupted light popped across the battlefield, forcing Batman and the others to retreat behind cover.

Damian didn’t look back.

He leapt forward, streaking toward Richard in a straight line, sword burning. He struck.

But his blade didn’t reach.

An invisible barrier of disruptive natural chi rippled out from Richard, stopping the Ashura-powered shockwave like a raindrop on glass. The force flung Damian back. He flipped in the air and landed beside the others.

The giant pod began to unfurl.

Like a colossal flower blooming in fast-forward. Vines pulled apart. Petals of flesh peeled open. A low hum grew louder, higher—until it cracked the air with a sound that was wrong.

Then—

BOOM.

A beam of concentrated Lazarus Chi erupted from the center of the pod.

It struck Richard Dragon dead center.

His body arched in the air.

He screamed—but it wasn’t pain.

It was joy.

“Witness… my apotheosis,” he howled, as the beam consumed him.

“I am becoming a GOD!”

The Lazarus light faded like a dying fire, leaving only memory and dust swirling through the cavern. When it finally settled, the giant pod lay shrunken and wilted—its vines slack, the swamp beneath cracked dry.

Barbara’s voice cut the silence. “What the hell… where did all the liquid go?”

Her words barely trailed off before Batman bellowed: “Look out!”

Above them, green thorns and spikes rained down in a lethal barrage. Barbara screamed—one thorn grazed Batman’s chest, eating through fabric and cutting flesh like acid.

Damian reacted without thought. An Ashura dome flickered up around the group, red-hot energy repelling the acidic thorns.

He turned to Bruce, concern sharper than anger. “You all right, old man?”

Batman groaned, spraying emergency foam over the wound. “Fine. Finish the job.”

Jason cleared his throat, delaying the moment. “I don’t want to ruin the touching moment with bad news…” He trailed off and pointed upward.

Damian followed the gaze.

Descending through the shaken ceiling was Richard. Human no more.

Two green horns pulsed from his skull. Dark energy vapors curled off him in waves—like Ashura, but sickly, green, secreted from some hellish source. The sight made Damian’s stomach flip.

“I never tasted true freedom until now,” Richard said, voice echoing in the hollow chamber. He molded his hand into a massive demon like claw, and with one downward swipe, unleashed another storm of thorns.

Damian’s dome flared, but this time the thorns pierced it, The Raksasha energy eating through the Ashura shield like snow under sun.

Richard vanished from the air in an instant—then slammed into Damian with brute force. They crashed through walls in a drawn-out impact. Stone exploded outward. Damian hit ground hard, bones rattling.

Jason’s voice rang out: “Damian!”

But Nightwing caught him by the shoulder. “He’s okay for now. Let him handle it.” He turned on two heels. “Right now our problem’s here.”

Deep growls echoed across the chamber.

Behind them, the Batalon horde had regrouped. Their bodies were twisted, deformed. More violent. Richard’s thorns had changed them.

Red Robin’s voice shook. “What do we do? Every Batalon we kill just merges into something worse.”

Batman steered the group into strategy mode. “We hit their ears first. Sonic frequency—vestibular overload. They can’t coordinate, can’t fuse.” He paused. “Then we freeze them.”

Barbara nodded, catching on and already rigging her drones. “You mean Cryo-aerosol dispersers. We spray them with Liquid nitrogen mist. We're talking regeneration shutdown.”

“Lethargic bodies. Cellular crystallization. Quick disrupt.” Jason added in dark anticipation.

“They won’t fuse if they can’t heal,” Batman finished.

Through the debris-strewn tunnel, Damian and Richard closed again. Their clash tore through rock. Ashura flared. Raksasha blades forged. Sparks, Chi techniques, grinding bones. Clashing flesh. The walls shattered like brittle glass.

This fight had only just begun.