The white-robed man stood composed in the distance, his garments fluttering softly against the rush of the midnight wind. Despite the utter failure of his opening assassination attempt, his outward demeanor remained jarringly peaceful, as though he were merely observing a quiet landscape rather than locked in a life-or-death confrontation.
"Do you only know how to rely on cheap sneak attacks? Why don't we fight like men?" I goaded him, trying to provoke him into a direct, head-on engagement where I could leverage my brutal physical dominance.
In response, he merely smiled, a faint, condescending curve of his lips as though he had just heard a particularly amusing joke from a child.
"It's a pity you do not know our people's way of combat," he let out a soft, contemplative sigh. "If you knew, our fight would be infinitely more interesting."
"Our people?" I frowned, narrowing my eyes.
"You're descended from the Aso continent too, at least partially. You should truly research your roots, Mr. Samsara Yu; I am certain you would find them deeply enlightening. You possess such an enormous, untapped reservoir of life potential—it's an absolute shame you cannot wield it to its fullest extent. Well, I suppose it's destined not to matter, seeing as you'll draw your very last breath today."
From his words, I can instantly confirm two critical things, I analyzed swiftly beneath my calm exterior. First, he has prior knowledge of me, or at least possesses deep intelligence regarding my family history. Second, just as human mages and druids discovered distinct, specialized paths to harness powerful magic, certain humans originating from the Aso continent clearly uncovered their own anomalous methods to achieve terrifying combat prowess.
"You say such fascinating things. Although you're quite right that I should eventually get around to exploring my roots, for now, I'll simply settle on making you meet your own ancestors," I retorted with a sharp, mocking smirk.
"Ho..."
The serene, detached vibe radiating from his body vanished in an instant, replaced by a surge of crushing, formidable pressure as he slipped into a textbook martial arts stance. With a sharp, light intake of breath, a deep wave of intimidation washed over his entire frame, his eyes turning suddenly as razor-sharp and hard as polished flint. In the blink of an eye, he took five consecutive rapid steps and entirely vanished from my sight.
That mysterious movement technique again... even a normal, high-tier vampire cannot accelerate with that kind of instantaneous stealth.
As I frantically tried to predict the precise vector of his impending strike, I threw up another invisible barrier of Willpower. Just as I anticipated, he materialized directly mid-air, hovering mere inches above the crown of my head. Silently, efficiently, he brought his traditional katana down in a devastating, downward vertical slash. I fully expected my defensive shield to effortlessly absorb the blow as it had countless times before, but to my utter shock, the moment his blade drew near the barrier's perimeter, weird, distorting invisible ripples fractured across the air.
The instant those ripples made contact with my skin, a blinding, white-hot searing pain ripped through my entire nervous system. Every single ossein—every hard-earned, reinforced bone in my thoroughly toughened body—shattered simultaneously like brittle, rotten wood. I instantly vomited a mouthful of dark blood as my protective barrier completely collapsed under the resonance. There was a sudden flash of cold steel, and the katana cleaved deep into my chest, driving straight toward my heart and bisecting the organ entirely.
The world plunged into absolute darkness for a fraction of a second, but my indomitable Will surged forward, locking onto my fading consciousness like a lifeline. I refuse to die at a moment like this.
Our enemies are truly bringing their absolute A-game, dispatching elite supernaturals just to wipe us out once and for all. I honestly don't know whether I should feel deeply flattered or violently pissed off. Perhaps a healthy mix of both.
True to form, my rapid death triggered the system's restoration protocol, instantly healing the catastrophic, fatal wound. My flesh knitted seamlessly back around the blade, leaving not even a faint scar behind. This time, however, the perpetual, unshakeable peace that had defined the white-robed man's expression was completely gone. In its place, his face twisted into an unmistakable mask of deep, unadulterated puzzlement.
"How can this be? That strike should have cleaved you cleanly in two and dropped you effortlessly," he muttered, his voice losing its steady composure.
"I suppose one can't always expect everything to go according to plan. It tends to breed dangerous arrogance," I answered mockingly, rolling my shoulders as the last of my shattered bones knitted back into pristine condition, entirely eradicating the agonizing damage inflicted by those deviously dangerous ripples.
"You... you are entirely not what I anticipated. Your telekinesis is easily stronger than any esoteric force I've ever witnessed, and your regenerative healing factor alongside your baseline physical strength easily rivals those ancient vampire lords. Furthermore, I literally bisected your heart—that injury should have been instantly, irrevocably fatal. Instead, I distinctly felt your breath of life vanish completely, only for it to reappear out of nowhere within a matter of seconds. What on earth are you?" he demanded sharply, his eyes narrowing to lethal slits.
My 'breath of life'? I mused internally, filing the phrase away. I'm going to have to thoroughly research that concept once I clear this battlefield. He also continues to mistakenly assume that my Willpower manipulation is merely a specialized form of telekinesis. Well, I suppose that's the most logical conclusion for any enemy witnessing my abilities.
They were wildly off the mark, of course—though I hadn't expected any mortal supernatural to correctly guess that my power was rooted in divine Will, a terrifying truth I had only recently learned from the demigoddess Clarice.
Seizing the micro-second of hesitation born from his absolute shock, I lunged forward and caught the flat body of his katana squarely with my bare hand. His eyes widened in disbelief as he instinctively tried to yank the blade backward out of my grip. Despite his frantic, explosive struggles, he couldn't budge the steel so much as a millimeter. It was the only effective tactical method I could devise to pin him in place, preventing him from utilizing his infuriatingly elusive, stealthy movement techniques and finally allowing my own counter-attacks to land.
With my left hand locked securely onto his weapon, I raised my right palm toward the open air and willed a catastrophic shift in the environment. Within a tight, ten-meter radius surrounding us, the ambient oxygen instantly ignited. The entire space caught fire, turning the very air we breathed into a searing, white-hot inferno.
Through the shimmering red haze of superheated air that blanketed my vision—fueled by everything within that ten-meter pocket acting as instant kindling—I watched shock and genuine panic settle over his disciplined features as he belatedly realized what I had orchestrated. His pristine white robes caught fire within a heartbeat, rapidly reducing to ash. Even the steel katana grasped in my hand began to soften and warp from the blistering intensity of the flames, prompting me to casually wrench it free from my grip and toss it aside.
For a fleeting second, I thought I finally had him cornered. But as the smoke cleared slightly, his face miraculously recovered its composed serenity. Looking closer, I realized with astonishment that only his outer garments had been incinerated; his long hair, his scalp, and his exposed skin remained completely, flawlessly unblemished. Focusing my Will to peer closer, I perceived some sort of dense, esoteric energetic barrier coating his epidermis like a protective, impenetrable film, insulating him entirely from the thermal disaster. With a casual flick of my wrist, I willed the localized firestorm to extinguish instantly.
The scorched earth beneath our feet glowed a dull, lingering crimson, and the heavy air hung thick with white smoke. He stood directly before me, his upper body entirely bare, revealing a lean, incredibly durable physique sculpted by a lifetime of brutal discipline. Numerous faded, crisscrossing battle scars traced across his torso, lending him the unmistakable aura of a traditional, hardened martial warrior. His pants and worn shoes were the only remnants of his attire.
"Well, I genuinely didn't expect you to pull off a maneuver quite that insane," he admitted, dusting off his shoulders. "In fact, how on earth are you not standing here as a pile of smoldering ash right now?"
"That's my line—what the absolute fuck is this mystical shit you've been deploying since the start of our fight?" I fired back, narrowing my eyes. "It somehow makes you completely impervious to open flames reaching temperatures upwards of 3,000°C. That is utterly ridiculous. And naturally, I'm not going to be harmed by my own element—basic common sense, really."
Right after dropping the retort, I exploded forward at maximum velocity, closing the distance between us in the blink of an eye. I figured that if I stripped him of his terrifying katana, his overall lethality would plummet significantly. In less than half a second, I drove a heavy, compressed palm strike straight toward his midsection.
With fluid, unnatural grace, he swept his left hand outward, smoothly parrying my incoming palm. His entire body shifted in a bizarre, counter-intuitive angle, and he stomped his foot heavily onto the fractured concrete, leaving deep, spiderweb cracks beneath his heel.
He just completely redirected the kinetic devastation of my palm strike straight down into the earth, I realized instantly. Those specialized warriors hailing from the Aso continent are genuinely terrifying. Despite lacking the monstrous, inherent physical baseline of high-tier supernaturals, they can go toe-to-toe with the most physically overwhelming sups alive solely through their esoteric 'way of combat' and this strange, manipulative force they command. At least, that's my working hypothesis based on this guy.
Refusing to give him breathing room, I whipped my leg upward in a vicious, high-velocity roundhouse kick. He caught my ankle effortlessly with his bare palm. The moment my leg made contact, I felt the sheer magnitude of my physical strength violently bleed away, dissipating harmlessly into the ground through his bizarre redirection technique. Recognizing the unfavorable exchange, I executed a rapid series of backflips, putting vital distance between us.
"Losing such a magnificent sword is undoubtedly a shame, kid, but don't for a second think it compromises my actual combat prowess," he warned smoothly, his tone ice-cold. "To assume otherwise is painfully naive."
True to his word, he dissolved into his trademark phantom movement, vanishing entirely before reappearing instantly off my left flank. Before I could even begin to manifest a protective barrier, a heavy, devastating impact slammed into my ribs, driving every drop of compressed air from my lungs. His knee drove upward in a lightning-fast strike, bringing a blinding world of intense agony straight to my face as warm blood spurted freely from my broken nose and split eyelids. Before I could recover my equilibrium, he hooked his arm around mine and slammed my body violently into the pavement with bone-rattling force.
Pinned to the ground, I clenched both fists tightly and concentrated my Willpower, instantly ripping every molecule of oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere within a five-meter radius. I caught the faint, startled skip of his heartbeat as his body instinctively registered the sudden, suffocating lack of air. He instinctively slapped a hand against his throat, stumbling backward a full step in surprise and physiological panic.
I pushed myself up from the cratered asphalt, casually wiping a smear of dust and blood from the front of my ragged clothes. I flashed a brilliant, predatory grin, showing him a row of pearly white teeth.
"I'm guessing the exact phrase running through your head right now is 'What the actual fuck?' Am I right?"