Chapter 1053: A Familiar Trick |
Watching the limits of their link strain to the max, Karya could feel sweat rolling down her face. She understood that, right now, Alice would stop at nothing to reach her goal.
The charge of a madman with no care for her own safety.
She didn’t even get a chance to try to talk things out as Alice lunged forward for another slash.
Quickly ducking down, Karya twisted her body and aimed to disarm Alice, only for the girl to activate Void Steps and appear behind her.
Clenching her teeth, she created two spears to parry Alice’s next strike.
But the strike never arrived.
Now that Alice understood her fighting patterns, planning ahead had become too simple.
With a twist of her body, she slammed her heel into Karya’s face, throwing her backwards.
A sharp ringing sound dominated her ears as she found herself having to reorient herself.
The depth of her fighting experience proved superior, and Karya was now at a full disadvantage.
She couldn’t see any way for her to break out of this. No possibility in which she reclaimed the tempo of this fight.
Right now, this was simply a death spiral towards her defeat. The only question left was how long.
Had her Second Resonance been allowed to activate as she had originally planned, maybe there would have been a way out. But there was something hindering the deployment of her personal realm.
And thus, Karya’s offensive capabilities had been reduced by more than 50%.
Surrounding herself with a defensive formation of spears, her mind spun quickly.
Every suggestion was shut down almost immediately as Alice slowly tightened the encirclement.
’It’s over.’ Karya smiled bitterly as she felt the link reach its limit.
The damage Alice had done would have been enough to kill someone over and over with ease and yet... she brute-forced it.
She cared not for the rules that would have been set down with the deployment of said link. Like a barbarian, she pushed her way through without care.
Against this kind of fighter, Karya was helpless.
Seeing the flickering shadow approach her, Karya sighed and prepared to surrender.
Yet before Alice’s strike could hit, an eruption of energy exploded near the tower as both Alice and Karya froze.
Karya realised who it was, and before she could even say anything, an arc of creepy dark energy rushed across the airspace as Alice quickly jumped back to counter.
A wall of blood and metal was prepared, yet the moment it came into contact with the energy, it was swallowed in an instant.
Alice’s pupils constricted as she quickly escaped through the Void before appearing a little further away than intended, giving Karya the time needed to break off the link and recover from her fatigue.
Crossing the gap, a young man could be seen, much to Karya’s confusion considering she knew who he was.
He had short black hair and a pair of glowing crimson eyes. Stitch markings slowly appeared around his neck as a tattered robe covered his body. In his hands, a sword could be seen, yet...
There was a hazy outline that seemed to be that of a scythe.
"What the f*ck are you doing here?" Karya frowned, but the young man didn’t turn around.
Instead, he created a purple orb before crushing it, creating a zone of dark energy that quickly swallowed and destroyed the countless threads Alice had left behind.
But more importantly, it ’cleansed’ the traps set on Karya’s body without her knowledge.
Her eyes widened and the young man spoke.
"You can’t deal with the kid. Just let me handle it."
Karya wanted to say something but held back. Instead, she started to walk away when Alice suddenly appeared above them.
Void Fang hummed with malice in her hands as energy rippled outwards.
The young man remained composed. With a snap of his fingers, a flash of ’black light’ washed across the airspace and Alice’s form started to distort.
The illusion she had set into place was torn apart as her true self was revealed to be below them all along.
There was a frown on her face, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
The fact that her attack and illusion had been destroyed so easily...
There must have been a property to the man’s energy that made him the bane of Hunters.
Zenia?
No, she doubted it.
It had a different feeling, and this ability was most certainly Abyssal in nature.
Thus, she concluded that it must be an authority of some kind.
Either Withering or one similar to it.
"Don’t get distracted now." His voice rang out.
"!!!"
Alice instinctively unleashed a horizontal slash around her, but her attack was pinched and then extinguished between his fingers.
Converging flames rushed towards her body, and Alice detonated an orb of blood to force him away.
A defensive move. One that surrounded the area with her own blood so that Abyssal abilities became weaker.
Of course, the same applied to herself, but it was much better than fighting an unknown threat. Especially when his abilities were still largely unknown to her.
’Cayla, can you help me analyse it?’ Alice requested while watching the man retreat casually.
[You don’t need to ask. I’m already doing so.]
Taking a deep breath, Alice was about to make a move when it felt as though the world had frozen in place.
The young man who should have been standing by the opposite window was now behind her.
His blade pointed at the back of her neck and his crimson eyes bore down on her.
Death.
A feeling she hadn’t felt in a while.
Not when she could rely on her superior regeneration.
Yet now, that feeling was stronger than ever. It wasn’t the ’death’ she felt from Apostles, nor was it what she felt when fighting Enris.
It felt like true death.
As though one touch would be enough to summon the reaper to take her life.
Even with her defence of countless souls hiding her true ’core’, one wrong move would mean the end of her.
This was not damage that could be ignored and shrugged off with regeneration.
I need to dodge.
That was the only thought in Alice’s mind.
With the cold hand of death rapidly approaching her neck, she activated Physical Resonance in a split second and detonated her own body!
Transforming herself into a mass of blood, her ’Vision’ focused entirely on the attack as she carefully traced its path and avoided all contact.
BANG!!!
With the slash missing its target, Alice quickly reformed her body a little further away, creating several singularities to fire streaks of energy at the new attacker.
Yet with a single twist of his hand, dark mist enveloped the area, swallowing the attacks.
Zero feedback.
Her attacks missed or rather, were completely erased from existence.
"Tch."
Clicking her tongue, Alice wanted to analyse the composition of that strange mist to figure out the Lord’s authority, but before she could, the mist disappeared.
It was as though the Lord knew what Alice was going for and held back before she could get a clue.
’It must have been from the time I was fighting the other Lord. He won’t give me the chance to analyse and adapt to his attacks.’ Alice exhaled softly.
With that in mind, she understood that the Lord would be trying to end this as fast as possible.
She didn’t want to admit it, but after killing an Apostle, she had allowed arrogance to corrupt her mind.
Her confidence had shot through the roof, and she wasn’t being as careful as she once was.
If the current her were to fight her past self, there was a good chance that the current her would lose.
The slothfulness that had appeared due to her repeated success and power.
This was a wake-up call.
BANG!!!
A huge wave of energy burst out from Alice’s body as her hair fluttered in the wind.
Since when did she start holding back during a fight? When did she start thinking about conserving her strength?
When did she start looking down on her opponents because of her regeneration?
"Hais... This isn’t good. I’m slacking on my fundamentals." Alice chuckled as she massaged her neck.
To an outside observer, she might have looked like she was simply expelling energy in order to appear intimidating.
But the young man opposite her could tell that a net of triggered casts was being woven around her.
The moment he made a move, countless attacks would be unleashed towards him without her needing to give a single command.
Raising her hand, Alice retrieved her personal artifact as the ’ban’ on personal domains was lifted.
Since this opponent was someone who had the potential to kill her, she shouldn’t hold back.
Not against him.
"If you have a personal domain, I suggest you use it. I’m not going to hold back anymore." Alice lost her smile as she slammed her palms together.
Energy converged to a single point as a droplet of black blood appeared between her palms.
Her eyes shimmered with energy as all six Sigils lit up across her body.
Just as she activated her ability, she noticed a reaper forming behind the young man and her eyes constricted in shock.
That familiar form...
That power...
Back when she had just started her journey as a Hunter, she couldn’t see the full depths of this authority.
But now? After all of her experiences, she could tell how terrifying it was to face the Lord of Death.
The chill that couldn’t be shaken off.
Her energy faded and the young man stopped his summoning.
Understanding that the fight was over, he placed his hand over his face as his body started to rapidly age until he became a weary old man.
Gin let out a slight groan. In the short time they had been apart, he never expected Alice to reach the point where he would need to pull out this move just to stand a chance.
But now was not the time to give praise.
Instead, he should be handing over the spotlight to someone else.
Behind Alice, a woman approached silently.
Her presence was hidden to perfection. A familiar trick that she loved to pull. One that had surprised Alice time and time again.
And as she lifted her hand, expecting it to work as usual...
Alice spun around and threw herself into the woman’s embrace.
"!!!"
Such a trick wouldn’t work on her again.
The woman’s surprise lasted for just a moment before a smile appeared on her face.
"You’ve grown."
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