"You see, I may not know what specialized technique you are using to pull off those freakish, high-speed moves, but I am certainly not an idiot," I said, leaning down slightly while maintaining a tight, mocking smirk. "I noticed that your entire combat flow was fundamentally tied to your precise breathing rhythm. So, I theorized that in an immediate, enclosed environment completely devoid of oxygen, your specialized techniques would be rendered utterly useless. Was my hypothesis correct?"
The white-robed master warrior could only stare back at me in desperate agony.
"....!"
"Ah, that's right—you currently lack the air required to speak," I noted casually as he continued to suffocate under the crushing vacuum I had engineered.
Now that I finally had a brief moment to catch my breath and stabilize my own internal rhythm, I shifted my gaze across the battlefield to observe how Chloe and Mr. Razach were handling their respective engagements.
Right in the center of a sprawling sea of bloody, torn body parts stood Chloe. She had already ruthlessly slaughtered at least twenty lower-tier enemies and was currently holding her ground against five elite combatants single-handedly. Remarkably, her designer garments remained pristine, entirely untainted by the gore and carnage surrounding her. Examining the group closing in on her, I identified a high-tier mage, two massive Lycans, a rogue vampire, and a colossal shapeshifter. The mage was deliberately maintaining a safe distance, continuously hurling complex, deadly incantations her way. The two Lycans were fully morphed into their monstrous beast forms, savagely snapping, biting, and clawing at her flanks. The vampire was exploiting his maddening, blurs-of-speed agility to hunt for microscopic openings in her defense. Meanwhile, the shapeshifter had assumed the form of an enraged grizzly bear, frontally challenging her with sheer, overwhelming physical mass.
Even with such a formidable, coordinated strike force pressing down on her simultaneously, I could instantly tell she was comfortably managing the entire situation without requiring a shred of my assistance—precisely what one should expect from the most freakishly powerful pureblood noble ever born to her race.
Mr. Razach was proving himself to be equally formidable. Wielding his massive, brutal smithing hammer, he was crushing the remaining vanguard of assailants with ruthless efficiency. The shocking agility with which he fluidly danced between multiple opponents while effortlessly evading their counter-attacks formed a striking contrast against the sheer, visceral brutality of his kills. Every downward arc of his hammer acted like a divine instrument of judgment, pulverizing foes into wet, unrecognizable blood paste.
By this point, the sheer volume of hostile combatants had plummeted dramatically, choked out by the combined, overwhelming devastation unleashed by Chloe and Mr. Razach.
Returning my attention to my immediate surroundings, my opponent was kneeling heavily in the dirt before me, his chest heaving as he frantically tried to replenish the oxygen I had stolen from his lungs. As he attempted to stagger back to his feet, I lashed out with a brutal, weighted kick straight to his jaw, sending him hurtling backward like a discarded rag doll. He landed with a sickening thud, lying completely motionless for a few agonizing seconds before groggily attempting to rise again, his formerly immaculate face now thoroughly caked in wet blood.
Since the absolute inception of our brutal duel, he had maintained an air of pristine, unblemished elegance, completely untouched by the grit and grime of combat. Seeing him reduced to such a disordered, battered state provided a deeply satisfying sense of vindication.
"You know what?" I murmured, stepping closer and crouching down right in front of his struggling, trembling form while subtly applying a heavy layer of Willpower to pressure his mind. "You've easily proven to be the most frustratingly difficult adversary I've had to lock horns with since all this supernatural madness started. And honestly, it isn't even because your raw power output was insurmountably high; nearly all of it stemmed from your mastery of those terrifying, esoteric combat skills. Now that I've finally got you pinned, humor me: where on earth did you master a style like that, and what is your faction's true motive for launching these coordinated attacks against us?"
He remained stubbornly silent, and for a fleeting second, I assumed he was simply trying to play the part of the stoic, unyielding captive. Then, the stark reality hit me: he physically could not answer because the prolonged oxygen deprivation had pushed him to the precipice of absolute unconsciousness.
"Oops, my absolute bad. Here, let me assist you with that," I muttered with faux-apologetic sarcasm.
With a sharp, casual snap of my fingers, I lifted the localized vacuum, allowing fresh air to rush back into his desperate lungs. He immediately doubled over, wracked by a violent, hacking fit of coughing. I patiently stood over him, waiting in silence until he managed to drag his breathing back under some semblance of control.
The second his eyes cleared of the haze, his warrior instincts flared anew. Moving with a sudden, desperate burst of blurred speed, he lashed out, driving a heavy palm strike directly toward the center of my chest. I let out an internal sigh, smoothly shifting my weight backward to casually evade the strike. My expression hardening into ice, I flicked my wrist, channeling my Will into a kinetic shockwave that launched him backward across the clearing. He remained airborne for a brief second before crashing violently and sickeningly into the trunk of a sturdy tree. The thick timber snapped clean under the impact, and he crumpled into the dirt, bleeding profusely from multiple fresh trauma sites.
Covering the distance in two rapid strides, I materialized directly over his broken body. Deciding there was no logical reason to drag this exhausting interrogation out any further, I reached down, clamped my fingers tightly around his throat, and hoisted his limp frame straight up to eye level. He could only emit weak, choking grunts, his eyes glazed over and completely unfocused.
I was just tightening my grip to finally snuff out his miserable existence when a strange, discordant sound pierced the air. It sounded like thousands of distinct, disembodied voices chanting simultaneously in an unholy chorus. Within a microsecond, that agonizing, deafening noise filled every corner of my skull, drowning out all other perception. I desperately tried to maintain my physical grip on the prisoner, but my nervous system felt as though a million manic ants were crawling directly through my brain tissue. Overwhelmed by the blinding psychic assault, my fingers loosened involuntarily, and I watched with rapidly fading consciousness as the white-robed warrior dissolved into thin air right before my eyes.
Then, absolute blackness.
I jerked awake accompanied by the absolute mother of all migraines. It felt precisely as though I had spent the entirety of the previous night downing bottomless shots of cheap tequila and was now paying the horrific price of a catastrophic hangover. Groaning, I pushed myself up from the scorched grass and cast my racing thoughts backward, trying to reconstruct the events immediately preceding my blackout.
In a flash, I was back on my feet, sweeping my gaze across the perimeter in a defensive arc. Aside from the dozens of lifeless corpses littering the blood-soaked ground, every single living assailant had completely vanished. A low, pained groan drew my attention toward the rising form of Mr. Razach nearby. He was pressing both hands heavily against his temples, angrily cursing in a dense, guttural dialect I couldn't even begin to identify.
A sudden, sharp spike of absolute dread twisted violently in my gut, distracting me from the smith. I frantically scanned the field for Chloe among the carnage, and an immense wave of relief washed over me when I spotted her lying motionless on the grass, thankfully unconscious but otherwise completely unharmed.
I hurried over to her side, gently shaking her shoulder until her eyes flickered open. She smoothly transitioned from a flat sprawl to a sitting position, blinking in momentary disorientation before looking around at the desolate landscape with evident confusion.
"Where did everyone go?" she asked, her voice tight.
"I honestly have no clue," I replied, helping her steady herself. "I was right in the middle of finishing off that Aso swordsman when a wave of chaotic, chanting voices blasted my mind, and I completely blacked out."
Mr. Razach, having recovered enough equilibrium to stagger over, joined our circle, his expression grim.
"I genuinely don't like the sound of that," he rumbled darkly.
"Why? What on earth went wrong?" Chloe pressed, furrowing her brow.
"That tactical extraction... it bears all the distinct hallmarks of high-grade arcane magic," he answered, his heavy brows locked tightly together.
"So you're saying a master mage orchestrated all of this from the shadows and successfully teleported them away?" I mused aloud.
"Most likely. But not just any ordinary, run-of-the-mill spellcaster could have pulled off a feat of this magnitude," Razach corrected gravely. "As I said, this is pinnacle high-grade magic. Only an incomparably powerful, ancient arcane entity could have successfully cast a spatial relocation spell of that sheer scale—the kind of terrifying individual who, entirely by themselves, walks the earth as a literal, living natural disaster."
"Are you entirely certain about that?" Chloe countered, her tone sharpening. "Because a spellcaster operating at that extreme tier of destructive potential should realistically only exist within the tightly monitored ranks of the Magus Council or among reclusive, historical mages long forgotten by modern society. If true, this complicates everything."
"The Magus Council?" I interrupted, jumping on the unfamiliar term.
"It's a prominent, highly secretive governing body that strictly regulates all magical affairs across the globe," Chloe explained swiftly. "The council is composed of master mages alongside specialized shapeshifter cadres who serve as their primary enforcement arm. While I agree with your assessment, Mr. Razach, I find it exceptionally difficult to believe the Magus Council would recklessly dirty their hands by involving themselves in a grotesque mess like soul-harvesting. After all, the entire global supernatural community unanimously ratified the absolute banishment of soul-reaping centuries ago."
I rapidly processed the dense, troubling web of information I had just absorbed. Right at this moment, more than ever before, I could acutely feel that something profoundly shady and massive was transpiring beneath the surface of the supernatural world. If an organization of that caliber held potential ties to this conspiracy, our upcoming moves were going to become exponentially trickier. And judging by the deeply troubled expressions carved across the faces of both Mr. Razach and Chloe, I knew my grim intuition was dead on.